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i 



THE AMERICANS 
IN PANAMA 



B^ ..J' 



WILLIAM R. SCOTT 



ILLUSTRATED 



NEW YORK 
THE STATLER PUBLISHING COMPANY 

SOI FIFTH AVENUE 
1913 



/-/'• 



6 / 



Copyright, 191 2, by 
WILLIAM R. SCOTT 



/^ 






THE TROW PRESS 
NEW YORK 



4 /. 3 vi-^' 
©C(.A328189 



L\ 



TO 
MY MOTHER 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — The Land Divided — The World United i 

II. — The Life Cost of the Canal . . 9 

III. — The Spanish in Panama . . . . 21 

IV. — ^The Panama Railroad .... 30 

V. — ^The French in Panama .... 39 

VI. — ^The Americans in Panama ... 46 

VII. — ^The Roosevelt Impetus . . . 52 

VIII. — ^Taking the Canal Zone ... 58 

IX. — The Geography of Panama ... 76 

X. — Getting Under Way 86 

XL— The Canal Under Wallace ... 92 

XII. — The Canal Under Stevens . . .108 

XIII. — ^The Canal Under Goethals . . .125 

XIV. — ^LocKS AND Dams 157 

XV. — The Culebra Cut 172 

XVL— Labor 185 

XVII. — Commissary — Quarters — Subsistence . 200 

XVIII. — Civil Administration 211 

XIX. — ^The Society of the Chagres . . 218 

XX.— The Trade Outlook . . . .226 

XXL— Settling Our Account With Colombia 238 

XXIL — ^The Monroe Doctrine .... 249 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Chagres River Frontispiece ^ 

FACING PAGE 

Col. W. C. Gorgas ii '^ 

President Roosevelt 55'^ 

Map of Isthmus of Panama 76"^ 

John F. Wallace gy 

President Taft . loii- 

John F. Stevens 115=" 

Col. Geo. W. Goethals 131-^ 

Assistant and Division Engineers . . . .147*^ 

Profile Map of the Canal 157"^ 

Entrance to a Lock 159*^ 

Interior of a Lock . 165*^ 

The Culebra Cut 173- 

Deepest Part of the Cut 181 »^ 

Old and New Machinery . . . . . .1911^ 

Quarters for American Employees .... 205*^ 

Governors of the Canal Zone . . . . . 215;^ 

Gatun Lake 223 '^ 

Map of Trade Routes 22^ *^ 

Cover Design .... Employee's Check Number ^ 



FOREWORD 

VERACITY to the facts concerning the Panama 
Canal requires that a writer not merely view 
the object which he describes, but that he actually 
become a part of the mechanism that is giving it form. 
He may thus practically illuminate observation with 
experience, and so vivify the object in his own 
thought, that his attempt to present it to others will 
be a close approximation of the truth. 

In the five months the author spent in Panama, he 
was for slightly more than three months an employee 
of the Isthmian Canal Commission, living the routine 
life of a canal employee. He discovered that, had 
he followed the usual method of coming into the 
Canal Zone on one steamer, taking notes, and leav- 
ing on the next steamer, he would have missed many 
fundamental facts, which absolutely must be known 
if a really trustworthy account of the greatest task 
of the age is desired. 

The Panama Canal is not the monument of any one 
individual American, nor of any select few individual 
Americans. In generations to come, the canal, like 
the skyscrapers of our cities, will be viewed as a 
manifestation of the building genius of the American 
people, just as the Pyramids of Egypt are not re- 

xi 



FOREWORD 

membered so much as the work of a given Rameses 
as a manifestation of the big building instinct of the 
entire race. 

This book is unjust to the generality of Ameri- 
cans who have helped to make the canal a success. 
Some day the government will authorize a history of 
the canal that will give the proper prominence to the 
rank and file as well as to the subordinate officials. 
But the treatment here undertaken, through the neces- 
sity for condensation, touches only the men who have 
affected the canal in the broadest way. 

The average American layman desires an authori- 
tative history of the project, but he particularly de- 
sires a nontechnical review, and decidedly one which 
distinguishes events from mere incidents, so that he 
may not be burdened with a mass of details which 
make it difficult for the essential facts to be kept in 
mind and at the tongue's end for immediate and in- 
telligent conversation. 

Those who prefer a more exhaustive treatment 
must look to the formidable annual reports of the 
Isthmian Canal Commission, to the files of the Canal 
Record, the speeches of Col. Goethals, and to a bibli- 
ography that already is extensive and is growing at 
a lusty rate. 

Central America and the islands of the Caribbean 
Sea afford a rich field for historical writing of the 

xii 




Map of the Isthmus of Panama. 



FOREWORD 

most intensely interesting character, but one volume 
cannot adequately cover so much ground. The scope 
of this book is limited to the Isthmus of Panama, 
covering a period of four hundred and ten years. 
Only so much of the history of the Isthmus under 
the Spanish, and during the construction of the Pan- 
ama Railroad and the French attempt to dig a canal, 
is given as was necessary to lend a perspective to the 
work of the Americans. 

W. R. S. 
Paducah, Kentucky, October, jgi2. 



XHl 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

CHAPTER I 

THE LAND DIVIDED — THE WORLD UNITED 

AMERICANS, your dream of an interoceanic 
^ canal is near to realization ! 

Where the Spanish scoffed and the French failed, 
the Americans have triumphed. South America, like 
Africa, soon will become an island, and the heroic 
searchings after a passage to the Spice Islands, by- 
Columbus, will reach fruition in 191 3, by the hands 
of a nation, not of the world which he knew, but of 
that very new world which he discovered! 

The Panama Canal has its broadest significance in 
the prodigious transformations it will make in the 
world's geography. It is a literal fulfillment of the 
Scriptural promise to man that he should have domin- 
ion over all the earth. 

There is poetic justice in the snatching of this vast 
enterprise from the parental hands of Europe by the 
lusty offspring of the Western Hemisphere. We 
thereby vindicate our slogan of America for Ameri- 
cans, because we have demonstrated our sufficiency 
in the face of the largest demand upon man's engineer- 
ing acumen. 

If it should have been said in 1904 that in nine 
years we would have removed more than 200,000,000 

I 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

cubic yards of earth and rock, laid 5,000,000 cubic 
yards of concrete, made dams and fills of more than 
50,000,000 cubic yards, relocated the Panama Rail- 
road, spent less than $300,000,000, and put the first 
ship through from the Atlantic to the Pacific, Europe 
would have smiled at our youthful temerity! Yet, 
in 19 1 3, we will have done precisely that. 

To-day there is no reason for revising the state- 
ment by Theodore Shonts that : " The physical con- 
struction of the Panama Canal is, all things consid- 
ered, the greatest task of modern times. It is in the 
highest degree exceptional in magnitude, complexity, 
and cost." 

The American-Panama Canal has risen phoenix- 
like out of the ruins of the French enterprise. For 
four centuries events have been shaping at Panama 
to make our final attempt successful. When we be- 
gan, crude as the conditions were, the sting of the 
Isthmus, except its diseases, had been drawn. There 
was a beaten road from ocean to ocean, on every hand 
were landmarks to warn our footsteps from perilous 
paths, the lives that had been lost, the money that 
had been spent, all served to make our task achiev- 
able. We justly may be proud of our deeds, but we 
should not forget. 

It may be asserted that the exigencies of world 
convenience justified the manner by which we ac- 
quired the Canal Zone; but in declining thus far to 
make reparation to Colombia we are violating the 
essential ethics of Americanism. Certainly the Amer- 
ican people cannot afford to dedicate their crowning 



LAND DIVIDED 

achievement in this age with one single nation enter- 
taining a sense of wrong because of it! 

The canal entered upon its last phase with the an- 
nouncement by Chief Engineer Goethals that the first 
ship would go through in September, 191 3. Thence- 
forward a definite goal was seen, and, despite the 
slides in the mountain cut, or any other obstacles, that 
program will be kept. Not a sign of slackness, but 
rather stimulated activities have followed the bring- 
ing of the end of the task in sight. In 19 12 all rec- 
ords for excavation and concrete work were smashed ! 

During the first two years and a half the canal was 
in its first phase. It was the period of pioneering, 
preparation, and adjustment. Two Chief Engineers 
were tried, from the ranks of civil life, accomplishing 
the main preliminaries to canal construction before 
their departure. Both were men of unquestioned in- 
tegrity and of impressive ability, but neither was the 
one of destiny to complete the task. 

The second phase of the canal was from the be- 
ginning of 1907 to the spring of 191 2. During these 
six years the heart of the task was accomplished. 
President Roosevelt had found the man who was to 
take the organization built up by the men from the 
ranks of private industry and hurl it against the 
natural obstacles that stood in the way of success. 
Col. Goethals was to take the blue-prints, and a head 
full of theories, and work them out into the locks, 
dams, and cuts in concrete mold to-day. 

The third and last phase, as noted, began in 191 2 
when the Chief Engineer set a date for the substan- 

3 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

tial completion of the canal. 'It is distinguished by 
the gradual dispersion of the army of workers, by the 
reverse process of the first two years, and by the 
creation of a permanent operating force with the de- 
tail finishing work that attends every large project. 

The East has furnished the canal with its Chief 
Engineers — Wallace from Massachusetts, Stevens 
from Maine, Goethals from New York. But every 
State in the Union has furnished the rank and file, 
as well as every nation in the world. 

Standing out distinctly from the construction phase 
of the enterprise is the figure of Col. Gorgas, the 
Chief Sanitary Officer, now, as in the critical days 
of 1905, quiet, alert, confident. The last days of the 
canal find a perfect mechanism of his creation record- 
ing his ideas with dispatch and precision, receiving 
the plaudits of this and secure in the admiration of 
succeeding generations. 

With the long ascent behind, standing upon the 
crest of the work of construction, looking down- 
grade at the early completion of the canal, one fact 
is emphasized in the minds of all laymen and engi- 
neers who view the project with open eyes. It is this. 
A sea-level canal, if not an impossibility, would have 
been an indefinite number of years in building and 
would have cost an indefinitely greater number of 
millions. The precipitation of more than 20,000,000 
cubic yards of extraneous material into the Culebra 
cut, by slides, rivets that fact in the minds of all 
observers. 

The locks may grow too small, the Gatun dam may 

4 



LAND DIVIDED 

break, a caving in of the foundations of the colossal 
structures may occur, and other convulsions of nature 
may disable the canal, but nothing can rob the Amer- 
icans of a wonderful achievement, nor will the work 
have been without glory and justification, no matter 
what the future holds. We still could rejoice in the 
sheer courage, persistence, and indomitable ability 
that have wrought the work in Panama. 

Just as the Civil War developed Grant, and the 
Spanish-American War Dewey and Schley, so has 
the Panama Canal developed Goethals. He justly is 
celebrated in the periodical and daily press and in 
books as a splendid embodiment of Americanism — the 
ideal combination of ability and integrity. 

It is true, of course, that the completion of the 
canal substantially fourteen months before the esti- 
mated date, January i, 191 5, and the saving of $20,- 
000,000 in the estimated cost, may mean simply that 
both items were overestimated in 1908 by Col. Goeth- 
als; but the tremendous increase in necessary exca- 
vation, due to slides and changes in plans, more than 
offsets this consideration and forces the acknowledg- 
ment that the savings in time and money represent 
the increased efficiency his own preeminent abilities 
have been able to produce. 

A perspective view of the whole enterprise shows 
that Theodore Roosevelt, by his individual actions, on 
at least three occasions, vitally affected the canal and 
its successful consummation. When he cut the Gor- 
dian knot of diplomacy and took the Canal Zone, he 
made the first long stride toward interoceanic com- 

5 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

munication. When he threw his weight into the scale 
for a lock type canal, he decided the most critical 
question that ever arose in the career of the enter- 
prise. The third time his judgment prevented a great 
mistake was when the project definitely was taken 
from the possibility of private construction and placed 
in the hands exclusively of government supervision. 
There were lesser decisions of great moment, not- 
ably the order for widening the locks and the Culebra 
cut, and his whole connection with the project was 
such as to rank as the most brilliant phase of his 
administrations. 

Before ten years have passed the American people 
will realize that the canal would have been cheap at 
twice the cost. The estimated cost, $375,000,000, is 
an impressive figure, but this age is moving fast. As 
great as the enterprise is, it is not probable that, in the 
item of cost at least, it will long remain the record 
achievement. But it is probable that when the record 
is broken, it will be the Americans who break it. 

To July I, 191 2, the canal had cost, fifteen months 
before its completion, $260,000,000. This was divided 
as follows: Canal Zone, $10,000,000; French purchase, 
$40,000,000; engineering and construction, $152,- 
000,000; general expenditures, $36,000,000; sanita- 
tion, $15,000,000; civil administration, $5,500,000; 
fortifications, $1,000,000. 

The canal was half done as to excavation and cost 
in 1 9 10. The toll in human lives, approximately 6,000 
by 1 91 4, for a period of nine and three quarter years, 
is impressive only for its cheapness. It is estimated 

6 



LAND DIVIDED 

that the building of the Panama Railroad, in 1850-55, 
cost that number of lives, and for the Americans to 
build the world's greatest enterprise in ten years 
at so low a life cost constitutes for the tropics a pro- 
foundly admirable achievement. Whether the gov- 
ernment has been economical in the physical construc- 
tion of the canal may be questioned, but it has been 
positively parsimonious in the expenditure of human 
life on the project. 

It would be fitting for the first ship to pass through 
the canal on September 25, 191 3, or just four hun- 
dred years to the day from the discovery of the Pa- 
cific by Balboa. Thousands of Americans may de- 
sire to go through the canal on their way to San 
Francisco's Exposition, a really delightful cruise from 
New York of eighteen days, but if they do, it will 
be in foreign ships, because we have no vessels that 
could handle the traffic. It will be a vivid object les- 
son of our pitiful lack of a merchant marine. 

Less than 100,000 Americans will have seen the 
canal in course of construction out of a population 
of 90,000,000. President Roosevelt truly said that a 
trip to see this great project in the building was more 
profitable than a trip to Europe. But at the San 
Francisco Exposition some compensation will be 
found for a failure to see the canal by an exhibit of 
every kind of machinery used by the French and the 
Americans in the thirty-five years of construction, or 
from 1880 to 191 5. When the government finally 
sold off the old French machinery that had littered 
the Canal Zone for three decades the best specimen 

7 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

of each kind of apparatus was reserved for this 
graphic exhibit. 

Panama now becomes the farthest outpost of 
Americanism in Latin America. The peoples of that 
continent have profited immeasurably by the prac- 
tical demonstrations in sanitation, civil government, 
and engineering construction. They have learned, 
and so has the rest of the world, that the tropics are 
not necessarily deadly, that order can be maintained, 
not only among a homogeneous population, but among 
the heterogeneous races that have thronged the 
Isthmus, and they have seen that no natural obstacle 
is insuperable before the intelligence of man. The 
canal should be a means of cementing these lessons, 
of disabusing mutual prejudices between the Amer- 
icans to the North and the Americans to the South. 
The American conquest of Latin America should be 
more through uplifting ideals than through bald com- 
mercialism leading to discord and unbrotherly rela- 
tions. 



CHAPTER II 

THE LIFE COST 

MEASURED in money, the Panama Canal was 
to cost $375,000,000. This is impressive, but 
there is another item of cost more important, namely, 
" The Life Cost," or the cost, in human lives, of dig- 
ging the canal. 

Contemplating the record of the Isthmus for un- 
health fulness, it could not but be anticipated, in 1904, 
when the Americans took charge, that this cost would 
be heavy. That it should be surprisingly low consti- 
tutes a more significant achievement than any saving 
in the money or time cost of the project. 

On July I, 1912, the Americans had been eight 
years in the actual work of building the canal. In 
that period of eight years there were: 

Deaths from disease 4,146 

Deaths from violence 995 

Total deaths 5,141 

Another full year before the passage of the first 
ship, and eighteen months before the practical and 
continuous operation of the completed canal, will 
bring that total of deaths, estimating on the average 
of previous years and not considering unprecedented 

9 



Deaths 


Rate per 1,000 


82 


13.26 


427 


25.86 


1,105 


4173 


1,131 


28.74 


571 


13.01 


502 


10.64 


558 


10.88 


539 


11.02 


226 


10.60 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

increases, to less than 6,000 by January i, 191 4. 
The Sanitary Department makes the following report 
for the eight-year period ending July i, 1912: 



Year No. of Employees 

1904 6,213 

1905 16,512 

1906 26,547 

1907 39,238 

1908 43.891 

1909 47.167 

I9IO 50,802 

191 1 48,876 

1912 (July) . . . 48,000 



The foregoing figures not only cover those actually 
at work on the canal, but as well include those who, 
while not regularly employed, are the wards of the 
Commission when idle. From 1907 onward health 
has been normal on the Isthmus, within the Canal 
Zone, with a death rate, among the Americans, fre- 
quently lower than in large centers of population in 
the United States. 

President Roosevelt selected Col. William Craw- 
ford Gorgas to clean up the Isthmus because of his 
record in sanitary work in Cuba and elsewhere. 
Chief Engineer Wallace doubted his capacity, and so 
did Secretary of War Taft, but, by 1906, the latter 
was ready to acknowledge his mistake. Col. Gorgas 
is a Southern man, a native of Alabama, and so natu- 
rally quiet and reserved in demeanor and deportment 

10 




Copyright hy Harris <& Ewing. 

Col. W. C. Gorgas. 



LIFE COST 

that men accustomed to measure a man by bluster 
and self-assertiveness make the mistake of assuming 
that he is not strong. His manner and methods sug- 
gest Gen. Robert E. Lee. 

There were two prime needs, as Col. Gorgas 
viewed the Isthmus in 1904, in any campaign for im- 
proved health conditions. One was to make the Isth- 
mus clean and the other was to kill the mosquitoes 
which he considered a means of propagating disease. 
Practically everything done by the health department 
has been along these main lines of theory. 

The United States profited by the mistakes of the 
French to the extent of reserving, in the treaty with 
the Republic of Panama, the exclusive right to con- 
trol the sanitation of Panama and Colon. So, in 
1904, the engineers immediately went to work on a 
sewer, waterworks, and street-paving plan that would 
make of these two characteristically filthy Central 
American cities, clean, decent, sanitary places of 
abode. 

The native population dumped all garbage, and mat- 
ter usually consigned to sewers, into the streets. 
These streets were mud holes which, with the admix- 
ture of refuse, made a condition inconceivably dirty 
and naturally unhealthful. The Americans made a 
reservoir in the mountains a dozen miles away for 
the water supply of Panama, dug sewers and forced 
the native houses to connect with them, and then 
paved the streets with brick. A system of garbage 
collection was organized, and the city was cleared 
of all rubbish. To-day the tourist sees some evidence 

II 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

of slovenly living, but conditions generally are sur- 
prisingly smart. 

The second part of the program — killing the mos- 
quitoes — was accomplished principally by the use of 
crude oil. Every stagnant pool of water, and most of 
the running streams — except rivers — were treated 
with oil, and the rank grass and tropical growth was 
kept cut by hundreds of scythemen. As a further war 
measure all houses were screened, the amount spent 
on this item alone amounting to a sum between $750,- 
000 and $1,000,000. 

Having cleaned up within, rigid quarantine regula- 
tions were made to keep out persons who might be 
brought in a diseased condition from other ports. 
Vaccination of every person who enters the Canal 
Zone is compulsory, unless a good scar can be shown. 
In 1905 a ship load of natives from Martinique, im- 
ported to work on the canal, refused to land because 
they thought vaccination was a plan to brand them 
so they could never return to their home. They were 
forced out at the point of the bayonet and vaccinated. 

It was before these plans had been matured that the 
first and only epidemic of yellow fever occurred in 
the Canal Zone. In April, 1905, an employee in the 
Administration building in Panama became sick with 
the fever, and from then on to September the Canal 
Zone was in the throes of a fear that was featured 
by the wholesale departure of employees. The news- 
papers gave the epidemic wide and oftentimes errone- 
ous publicity, with the consequence that the govern- 
ment had to pay for the fear of the Isthmus thus 

12 



LIFE COST 

created, in greatly increased salaries and gratuities, to 
secure American employees. 

By October, 1905, Col. Gorgas had mastered the 
epidemic, and, although isolated cases have occurred 
since, yellow fever was permanently banished as the 
bugbear of Panama. From July i, 1904, to Novem- 
ber I, 1905, 44 employees succumbed to this disease. 
While the epidemic raged, from April to September, 
1905, there were -^y deaths among employees, mainly 
among Americans, with whom the epidemic started. 

There was a siege with smallpox and the plague, 
but they, too, were eradicated in so far as epidemics 
are concerned, and malaria, pneumonia, and tubercu- 
losis remain as the most frequent attributed causes of 
death. Quinine has been bought by the ton for the 
Canal Zone dispensaries and hospitals. In 1908 each 
employee averaged about an ounce of quinine, and 
they were advised to take three grains daily. 

The French had left hospital buildings in Colon 
and on the side of Ancon hill, just outside of Pan- 
ama. The Americans renovated these and added to 
them until the present vast facilities came into form. 
They sometimes have more than 1,200 patients. A 
large asylum for the insane also is maintained. Hos- 
pital cars are attached to the passenger trains to bring 
in patients to the Ancon and Colon hospitals each day. 
In every town or settlement there is a dispensary with 
a physician in charge and a sanitary officer to inspect 
conditions of living. There are about 24 employees 
out of every thousand constantly sick. 

For the Canal Zone, Panama and Colon, in 1905 

13 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

the death rate was 49.94 per 1,000. In 191 1 it was 
21.46, or cut down more than one half. In 1906 the 
death rate among the Americans from disease was 
5.36, and in 191 1 it was 2.82. In 1908 and 1910 there 
were more Americans killed in accidents or died from 
violence than died from disease. 

lit necessarily follows, from an engineering task of 
this magnitude, where vast quantities of explosives 
are handled, where there is a considerable railroad 
mileage and other hazardous features of construction, 
that the death rate from violence or accidents would 
be large. 

Every month since the American occupation began 
in May, 1904, there has been an average of 10 em- 
ployees killed or have died from external causes. The 
total to July I, 1 912, was 995, and by the time the 
canal is completed, barring unusual catastrophes, the 
deaths from this cause will be around 1,100. Under 
the head of violence are included deaths by drowning, 
suicide, dynamite explosions, railroad accidents, poi- 
sonings, homicides, electric shocks, burns, lightning, 
and accidental traumatism of various kinds. 

Scores of deaths have resulted from the practice of 
the native employees in using the railroad tracks as 
public highways. There have been bad collisions 
and wrecks with fatalities, and dynamite has claimed 
about one tenth of the victims of external violence. 
In the handling of 25,259 tons of dynamite, or 50,- 
517,650 pounds, to July 1,1912, the following princi- 
pal accidents have occurred: 

December 12, 1908, at Bas Obispo, premature ex- 

14 



LIFE COST 

plosion of twenty- two tons in the Culebra cut, 26 
killed and 40 injured. 

October 10, 1908, at Mindi, 7 killed and 10 in- 
jured, premature explosion. Dredging in Pacific en- 
trance. 

October 8, 1908, at Empire, in the Culebra cut, 5 
killed and 8 injured, premature explosion. 

August 30, 1 910, at Ancon quarry, 4 killed. 

July 19, 191 1, at Ancon quarry, 4 killed, 2 in- 
jured. 

January 10, 1909, at Paraiso, 2 killed, 10 injured. 

July 25, 1909, on Panama Railroad, 4 killed, 9 
injured. 

May 22, 1908, in Chagres division, 2 killed, prema- 
ture explosion of twenty-six tons, caused by light- 
ning. 

Forty deaths from dynamite explosions are noted 
for the year 1908, the largest number for any one 
year of canal construction, and this does not take 
into account several individual fatalities. Chief En- 
gineer Goethals issued stringent regulations to govern 
the handling of the dynamite, but it was in such com- 
mon use that the employees naturally became careless. 
An instance is afforded by two employees who 
knocked an iron pipe against a railroad track to dis- 
lodge some dynamite. They were angels in less than 
two seconds after the first blow. The worst acci- 
dent, at Bas Obispo, has not been explained. 

Most of the accidents have occurred since the work- 
ing force has been in excess of 20,000 men. When 
the number killed outside the line of duty is sub- 

15 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

tracted from the total deaths by violence, it will be 
found that the actual building of the canal has been 
attended by a normal percentage of such fatalities 
— certainly no larger than in any private construc- 
tion of the same character or approximating the same 
magnitude. The largest number of deaths by violence 
among employees in one year was in 1909, when 178 
were killed, and this was equaled again in 191 1. The 
following table shows the number of American em- 
ployees, the total death rate, and the relation of 
deaths from disease to deaths by violence from 1906 
to 191 1, inclusive: 

Year No. of Death Rate _ By Violence 

Empl'y's Per 1,000 



1906 3,264 8.14 5.36 

1907 5.000 8.14 5.36 

1908 5,126 8.19 370 4.49 

1909 5.300 5.56 3.23 2.33 

1910 5,573 5.35 2.43 2.92 

1911 6,163 5.14 2.S2 2.32 

Col. Gorgas found, in the early years of canal 
work, that the Americans and Europeans were three 
times as healthy as the natives of the tropics, who, 
as Chief Engineer Stevens noted in 1905, " are sup- 
posed to be immune from everything, but who, as a 
matter of fact, are subject to almost everything." 
This somewhat upsets the theory that northern races 
cannot live readily in tropical climates. 

Several of the annual reports of the Sanitary De- 
partment have noted the remarkably few diseases 

16 



LIFE COST 

peculiar to men, such as alcoholism, etc. Mr. Tracy 
Robinson, in his book of personal reminiscences, 
" Fifty Years at Panama," speaks authoritatively on 
the use of liquor in the tropics as follows : 

** Many foreigners have fallen victims to 
fear rather than fever; while many others 
have wrought their own destruction by 
drink, which is the greatest curse of man- 
kind in all lands, but more especially in hot 
countries. It has killed, directly and indi- 
rectly, more than the entire list of diseases 
put together; for it induces by its derange- 
ment of the vital forces, every ill to which 
flesh is heir. Candor compels me to state 
that I have tried both abstinence and moder- 
ate indulgence; and when it is said that 
strong drink is necessary in the tropics to 
tone the system up, or for any good purpose 
under heaven, I say emphatically, it is not 
so! It is absolutely best to let it entirely 
alone. My fifty years' experience gives me 
authority to write as I do." 

Allowance must be made, in considering the favor- 
able health showing on the Isthmus, to the fact 
that the employees in one sense are picked men. 
They must be in sound condition when employed and 
usually in the prime of life. Another thing that has 
kept the death rate down among the Americans has 
been the practice of returning to the United States 
many patients who apparently had not long to live. 

17 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Thus their deaths were not a charge against the Canal 
Zone. 

It cannot be assumed that all the deaths from dis- 
ease in the Canal Zone were from causes that origi- 
nated there. The diseases peculiar to the tropics have 
not claimed as many victims among the Americans as 
the diseases peculiar to the northern climates. But 
there has been a steady improvement, as may be 
noted in a fall in the death rate among the Americans, 
from 8.14 per 1,000 in 1907 to 5.14 per 1,000 in 191 1. 

An incident in the sanitary government of the Isth- 
mus was an Executive Order by President Taft, ef- 
fective on December 12, 191 1, which prohibited the 
practice of any system of therapeutics or healing that 
the Sanitary Department, the allopathic school, should 
rule against. The President, upon its possible appli- 
cation to create a monopoly of healing in the Canal 
Zone being pointed out to him, revoked the order on 
January i, 1912. 

Employees are not permitted to remain in their 
homes or quarters when sick, but must go to the 
Colon or Ancon hospital, unless the district physi- 
cian expressly rules otherwise. The hospital grounds 
at Ancon are beautiful, and convalescent patients are 
sent to Taboga Island, ten miles out in Panama Bay, 
for final treatment. A dairy with 125 cows supplies 
fresh milk to the Ancon hospital. 

At first Col. Gorgas was not a member of the Isth- 
mian Canal Commission. But the extraordinary abil- 
ity he displayed resulted in the separation of the Sani- 
tary Department from the jurisdiction of the Gov- 

18 



LIFE COST 

ernor of the Canal Zone, and on February 28, 1907, 
Col. Gorgas was made a member of the Commission, 
with the Department of Sanitation having equal dig- 
nity with other grand divisions of the work. He is 
the only official of the highest rank who has been with 
the canal project from its earliest days to the present. 

The cost of the sanitary conquest of the Isthmus, 
to July I, 191 2, was the somewhat impressive total 
of $15,000,000. Here, as in the pay and treatment of 
employees, the government has sought results without 
regard to the expense. For the remaining days of 
the canal the cost of sanitation will be approximately 
$2,500,000, or $17,500,000 in all by January i, 191 4, 
which amount is nearly $3,000,000 less than the cost 
estimated for the department in 1908. 

The first grand lesson from the life cost of the 
Panama Canal is that the tropics no longer offer in- 
superable obstacles to the health of northern races. 
For all South and Central America the work of the 
Americans in Panama teaches the imperative neces- 
sity of a literal belief in the old adage : " Cleanliness 
is next to Godliness." At every single point where 
disease has dominated the situation, it has been found 
that filth abounded. Guayaquil, in Ecuador, some- 
times is quarantined half the year, and it is a signifi- 
cant fact that this has been one of the dirtiest ports in 
South America. Any people who are willing to live 
indecently will pay the penalty in a high death rate. 

When the ordinary cleanliness to which the Ameri- 
can, or the European, is accustomed is observed in 
the tropics, and if intoxicants are not permitted to 

19 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

dominate the individual life, there will not be the 
slightest difficulty in living near the Equator. The 
ultimate crowding of North America will force pop- 
ulation into Central and South America, and among 
the world benefits of the Panama Canal none is more 
flattering to the Americans than just this lesson that 
he who will live decently may live healthfully. 



20 



CHAPTER III 

THE SPANISH IN PANAMA 

HISTORIANS have noted that certain members 
of the vegetable and mineral kingdoms have 
played a vital part in the discovery and colonization 
of the Americas. 

Columbus, the master spirit of his age, had the 
noble, imaginative conception of the earth's rotundity 
which he wished to demonstrate to mankind, but his 
immediate impulse was to find the shortest passage 
to the East Indies, where the spices so much prized 
on the dining tables of Europe could be obtained and 
brought back more expeditiously than by the long trip 
around the Cape of Good Hope. 

To the North, more than a hundred years later, 
tobacco was the main product that held the English 
colonists to Virginia in the face of hostile savages 
and exile from home. Smoking spread over Europe 
like an epidemic, making the rewards from the culti- 
vation of the weed immediate and profitable from the 
start. 

The members of the mineral kingdom which held 
the venturesome mariners to their new found lands, 
despite every discouragement, human and natural, 
were gold and silver. No sooner had these precious 
metals crossed the European vision than their first 
love, spices, faded completely out of the imagination. 

21 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Thenceforth, the Spaniards and the Portuguese ran- 
sacked an isthmus, a continent, and the islands of the 
sea with frenzied and appalling barbarities and with 
splendid success. 

Thus spices, tobacco, gold, and silver have been 
the unheroic causes of epochal movements in the 
human family. Columbus kept his vision above the 
sordid greed for gold to the last. On the fourth at- 
tempt he made to find a passage to the East Indies 
he cruised along the Isthmian coast from September, 
1502, to January, 1503, entering and naming the har- 
bor of Porto Bello on November 2, 1502, and visiting 
Nombre de Dios on November 9th, in what is now 
the Republic of Panama. 

Columbus, however, was not the discoverer of Pan- 
ama, as a Spaniard, named Rodrigo de Bastides, had 
preceded him to this coast, in 1501, so that the period 
of the Spanish in Panama dates from that year. Ba- 
stides visited Nombre de Dios, where eight years later 
the first Spanish settlement on the Isthmus was 
planted, in 1509, as a base for the search for gold. 

Vasco Nunez de Balboa had been with Bastides 
on his trip of exploration and he became the head 
of the new colony at Panama. It had been desig- 
nated " The Castle of Gold " by the King of Spain 
because of the plentiful quantities of that metal found 
among the natives. For a few years the mountains 
with their dense jungle growth stood as a barrier to 
explorations farther inland, but the stories of the 
marvelous wealth of the inhabitants on the other 
side, told to Balboa by the Indians, so excited his 

22 



SPANISH 

cupidity that, in 15 13, he gathered a band of 190 men 
and started across. 

When they approached the summit of a mountain 
which, the 'Indian guide said, would afford a view of 
the new sea, Balboa ordered his men to halt while 
he alone took the first view. There, in the heart of 
the Isthmian jungle, four hundred years ago, with 
what must have been a feeling of awe even to his 
hardened nature, Balboa discovered the Pacific, on 
September 25, 15 13. Calling his men to him, they 
had a religious ceremony, claiming all they surveyed 
as the dominions of His Majesty, the King of Spain. 
Four days later, after traversing the distance to this 
sea from the mountain, he waded out into the water 
and reaffirmed his sovereign's title. 

Gold he found in abundance, and pearls of fabu- 
lous size and value. After five months' absence, he 
returned to Nombre de Dios by a more direct course, 
and spread the news which was to turn Central and 
South America into a slaughter house, through the 
mad traffic that debauched Spain, made pirates of 
England's navigators, and reduced the original popu- 
lation to wretched slavery. 

Balboa found that he had been succeeded as Gov- 
ernor at Nombre de Dios by a soldier named Pedra- 
rias. Between them a hatred sprang up which, in 
1 517, resulted in the untimely and unjust execution 
of Balboa on trumped up charges. Prior to this, Bal- 
boa had made other trips to the Pacific, carrying 
across with incredible labor the parts of ships which 
were rebuilt in the Pacific. In 191 1 the Americans 

23 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

found a cannon of immense weight about halfway 
across, which evidently had been abandoned by Bal- 
boa, and an anchor of great size also has been found. 

Pedrarias, in 1515, had sent exploring parties to 
the Pacific side to select a site for a settlement on that 
coast. The San Francisco Exposition, therefore, in 
191 5, will be exactly four hundred years after this 
event. It was not until 15 19 that the settlement was 
started, and the founding of the city of Panama dates 
historically from that year. 

With the founding of a town on the Pacific side 
began the interoceanic traffic which ever since has 
emphasized the need of easier and swifter communi- 
cation between the Atlantic and Pacific. The site of 
the city was about twelve miles from the present city 
of Panama, and a few miles inland. At a huge ex- 
pense of labor and life a paved road was constructed 
from Nombre de Dios to Panama, portions of which 
may be seen in the Canal Zone to-day. Another 
route across the Isthmus followed the Chagres River 
as far as it was navigable to a point near the Ameri- 
can town of Gorgona, from there the trip being 
across the mountains to Panama. 

It may be noted that Panama was founded a full 
one hundred years before the landing of the Pilgrims 
at Plymouth. Nombre de Dios was a town ninety- 
eight years before the first English settlement in North 
America, at Jamestown, in 1607. Saint Augustine, 
Florida, the oldest town in North America, was not 
founded until forty-six years after Panama. Indeed, 
Panama is the oldest part of continental America. 

24 



SPANISH 

Francisco Pizarro, a pupil of the Balboa school, 
heard tales about an indescribably rich country south 
of Panama. He organized an expedition, which left 
Panama in 1532, and effected the conquest of Peru, 
which Prescott has immortalized in Hterature. His- 
tory does not afford a more daring, a more barbarous, 
and scarcely a more richly rewarded conquest, nor 
does Europe or Mexico present a more interesting 
prehistoric civilization than the land of the Incas. 

After nearly a century at Nombre de Dios, the 
Spanish, in the year 1584, found Porto Bello a health- 
ier site for a settlement, and moved bag and baggage 
to that incomparable port. In leaving Nombre de 
Dios, it is worth recording that Sir Francis Drake, 
the great Englishman who had " singed the King of 
Spain's beard," who had plundered the Spanish Main 
from boyhood, and had circumnavigated the globe, 
claiming California for his Queen, died on board ship 
and was buried at sea off Nombre de Dios in 1596. 

Porto Bello at once became the depot of Spanish 
treasure, accumulated from Peru or other South and 
Central American countries, and brought across the 
Isthmus from Panama with incredible hardship. 
From this port the Spanish galleons ran the gauntlet 
of English pirates to Spain. Drake had been one of 
the most intrepid of this crew. Henry Morgan, a 
century later, was another. The English allowed the 
Spanish to perform all the arduous labor and fighting 
involved in acquiring the gold and silver, then hov- 
ered around the West Indies and took it from them, 
or died in the attempt. 

25 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

In 1668, Henry Morgan collected a motley crew of 
sea vagabonds with the object of capturing Porto 
Bello. The operations of the English buccaneers usu- 
ally were plain piracy, but they justified themselves 
in their own minds by the quarrelsome state of the 
relations between England and Spain, and a still 
deeper motive was the implacable warfare between 
Protestant and Catholic. Morgan, as unprincipled a 
soldier as ever fought, was knighted for his piracies 
in Panama. 

Porto Bello was captured after a fight not sur- 
passed in history for inhumanities. The treasure they 
found here whetted their lust for gold, with the re- 
sult that, three years later, a still bolder enterprise, 
that of traversing the Isthmus and taking Panama, 
was planned. In 1671 Morgan started up the Cha- 
gres River with 1,600 men, and, after abandoning 
that stream, they struck out overland to Panama. 
Nine days were consumed in the journey with hard- 
ships from hunger and the labor of penetrating the 
jungle, the like of which have not been exceeded by 
soldiers anywhere. 

When they did get in sight of Panama they were 
so weak that a more resolute foe easily could have 
annihilated the army of invasion. The Spanish and 
natives kept within their fortifications and their first 
offensive move was to attempt to stampede two thou- 
sand bulls upon Morgan's men, who promptly quit 
fighting to slaughter enough of the animals to satisfy 
their hunger. Thus what might have been a formidable 

26 



SPANISH 

defensive act, if successfully managed, was turned to 
vital advantage by the enemy. 

A desperate defense was unavailing. The city was 
captured, but found to be barren of treasure, as the 
Spanish had loaded a ship with their gold and silver 
before the attack began, and the ship could not be 
found. It was an unwise move, because the infuriated 
pirates proceeded to torture the people, and to mur- 
der hundreds, finally burning Panama to the ground. 
To-day tourists go out to see a tower and other ruins 
of the famous old city of Panama. 

Panama was rebuilt on a short promontory in the 
Pacific, and although captured again by the pirates 
in 1680 has remained on the new site to this time. 
Many vicissitudes attended the career of the Span- 
iards for the following century and a half, the chief 
ruffle on their calm being an effort by William Pater- 
son, a wealthy Englishman, to found a colony of 
Scotchmen in the Darien region on the Atlantic coast, 
east of Porto Bello. The first colony of 1,200 came 
in 1698 and perished from disease or fighting, and 
a second company of 1,300 followed the same course, 
being expelled or killed by the Spanish, so that not 
more than thirty ever returned to Scotland. It was 
a lamentable failure of English colonizing south of 
the American colonies, and was not followed by other 
experiments in Panama. 

During all the stirring years in Panama the Span- 
ish had swarmed over Mexico, Central America, and 
South America. Yet, early in the nineteenth century 
the great colonial empire began crumbling away. 

27 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Province after province revolted from Spain. The 
explanation is that the Spanish never looked on Amer- 
ica as anything other than a place to extract gold 
and silver. This attitude enabled them to secure the 
most wealth in the shortest time, but the methods 
employed, and the treatment of the natives, laid the 
foundation in unstable elements. In North America 
regular agricultural and commercial pursuits caused 
English civilization to take deep root, but, in justice 
to Spain, it at least is true that she maintained her 
authority over her colonies as long as England did 
over hers. 

Panama, in 1821, caught the spirit of revolt, and 
accomplished her freedom from Spain in a bloodless 
revolution. It then joined the Confederation of New 
Granada, the Colombia of to-day, under Simon Boli- 
var, South America's great soldier and statesman. 
Here ended the career of the Spanish in Panama. 

Easily the most impressive fact in all the Western 
Hemisphere is the achievement of the Spanish in dis- 
possessing a whole continent of its original tongues 
and substituting therefor their own language. With 
the exception of some Portuguese colonies, the lan- 
guage of the Castiles is the language from the Rio 
Grande to Patagonia. The customs also are Spanish 
and so is the religion. The explanation of this truly 
remarkable fact is that the Spaniard absolutely re- 
fused to adapt himself to the native tongues, cus- 
toms, or religion, forcing them to conform to his. 
But the chief credit for this achievement belongs to 
the missionaries of the Catholic Church, men no less 

28 



SPANISH 

daring than the conquerors with whom they went 
hand in hand, planting missions and churches in the 
jungle. These indomitable priests taught the native 
children to speak Spanish, and in the course of cen- 
turies it became the continental language. 

What will be the future of English in Latin Amer- 
ica ? It is not a wild prophecy to assert that in another 
generation Spanish will be decadent and English 
everywhere ascendent. Already the higher social and 
business circles are acquiring English. In every cen- 
ter of population it is making rapid headway, though 
it must be many years before the mass of the peo- 
ple make it their own. The South American youth 
is not dreaming of Europe, but of the giant young 
republic to the North. He wants to see its skyscrap- 
ers, its dazzling luxury in every phase of life. Its 
politics fascinates and amazes him. It seems a land 
literally rolling in wealth, the land of opportunity and 
the land where he may learn the arts with which to 
make a career in his own country. The Americans 
are as loath to adapt themselves to Spanish customs 
and dialects as the Spaniards were to the original. 
Every year Americans find it less difficult to get about 
anywhere in Latin America. English ultimately will 
triumph from Alaska to Magellan Straits, and the 
canal will speed the day. 



29 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PANAMA RAILROAD 

KENTUCKY'S great statesman, Henry Clay, as 
Secretary of State in 1825 and as Senator in 
1835, was interested farsightedly in plans for speed- 
ier communication at the Isthmus between the two 
oceans. The independence of Panama from Spain by 
a bloodless revolution in 1821 had placed the Isth- 
mus in a new position for other European govern- 
ments, or the United States, to negotiate terms for 
concessions. The American people were jealous of 
foreign activities, but not aggressively active them- 
selves in concrete efforts toward a canal. 

De Witt Clinton, prominently connected with the 
Erie Canal, headed a company that sought government 
aid in its plans for a canal in Central America, but 
though Clay encouraged the idea nothing definite re- 
sulted. The year following, or in 1826, Simon Boli- 
var, South America's great soldier and statesman, 
invited the United States, among other American re- 
publics, to an international conference in Panama 
with the object of forming a union for the promotion 
and defense of all American interests. 

While nothing significant came of this congress, it 
is noteworthy as the first attempt to form what is 
now the Pan-American Union, or the Bureau of 
American Republics, at Washington. It assembled on 

30 



RAILROAD 

June 22, 1826, but the United States representatives 
did not arrive in time to participate. 

Panama had become a part of the confederation of 
New Granada after independence from Spain, and 
thenceforth hved the regular Hfe of a turbulent prov- 
ince of what to-day is known as Colombia. All the 
commerce between the coasts drifted across the Isth- 
mus at that point. Little effort had been made to 
improve the passage, so that swifter and easier com- 
munication was the dream of every seaman or trav- 
eler. 

Clay introduced a resolution in the Senate in 1835 
authorizing President Jackson to appoint a commis- 
sioner to investigate the feasibility of a rail or water 
route at the Isthmus. Charles Biddle undertook the 
mission and secured a concession at Bogota, the capi- 
tal of New Grenada, but he died before making a re- 
port. President Van Buren interested himself in the 
project, but little came of American plans for the next 
ten years. 

The ever alert French, in 1847, after securing a 
concession to build a railroad, allowed it to lapse. It 
is significant that this French failure was followed, as 
in the case of trying to dig a canal, by a successful at- 
tempt by the Americans. 

Three Americans, William H. Aspinwall, John L. 
Stephens and Henry Chauncey, of New York, taking 
advantage of the opening made by the French failure, 
obtained a concession from the Bogota government 
in 1849 for building a railroad across the Isthmus at 
Panama, with the important provision that no canal 

31 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

could be constructed there without the company's con- 
sent. 

Their concession was for a period of forty-nine 
years after the completion of the railroad, but Colom- 
bia reserved the right, twenty years after its comple- 
tion, to purchase the road for $5,000,000. The 
unprecedented prosperity of the road immediately upon 
the beginning of its operation made this latter pro- 
vision a bad stroke, as in 1875 Colombia could take 
it over at the fixed valuation. The company began to 
seek an extension of the life of the concession, with 
Colombia, unfortunately for it, holding the whip hand. 

Negotiations were concluded in 1867 whereby a 
ninety-nine year concession was obtained, but the 
terms were very hard. A cash bonus of $1,000,000 
had to be paid to Colombia, with an annual payment 
of $250,000 and the company agreed to extend the 
railroad out into the Pacific Ocean to some islands 
where deep water would enable large ships to dock. 

Luckily for the American promoters, the discovery 
of gold in California in 1849 came just as they were 
seeking to float their company. The Isthmian route to 
California at once became heavily traveled and the 
eyes of the whole world, particularly of the United 
States, were again fastened upon Panama. 

Our government in 1846 had concluded a treaty 
with Colombia which provided for the joint construc- 
tion of a canal in Panama, and the stimulated interest 
in the Isthmian route in 1849 made this appear a 
fortuitous treaty, because it excluded any European 
power from that territory. A controversy arose be- 

32 



RAILROAD 

tween the United States and England over the Nica- 
raguan canal route, culminating in a treaty between 
the two governments known as the Clayton-Bulwer 
treaty of 1850. This treaty provided substantially the 
same as the Colombian treaty of 1846, that in the 
event of the construction of any canal in Central Amer- 
ica, Great Britain and the United States guaranteed its 
neutrality and use on equal terms to all the world. 

The addition of the territories of Oregon and Cali- 
fornia to the United States still further emphasized 
the need of quick communication between the Atlantic 
and Pacific. The Panama Railroad, therefore, took 
hold upon the popular imagination. 

Aspinwall and his associates pushed the construc- 
tion of the road under James L. Baldwin, an Amer- 
ican civil engineer of uncommon ability. Labor of 
a desirable kind was not obtainable. Many nation- 
alities were tried, with a tragic failure on the part of 
the Chinese, who seemed unable to face the terrors 
of the jungle. Hundreds committed suicide, and dis- 
ease and accidents claimed other hundreds. The life 
cost of the Panama Railroad in the Hyq years it was 
building has been estimated at 6,000 persons. 

The route selected started at an island near the 
coast on the Atlantic side, the site of the city of Colon, 
crossed the hills into the valley of the Chagres River 
and followed that valley to the continental divide, over 
which it passed with a maximum elevation of 263 feet 
above sea-level, and thence down to Panama on the 
Pacific side. Treacherous swamps, almost impene- 
trable jungles, and formidable streams and mountains 

33 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

necessitated incredibly hard labor and continuous work 
from 1850 to January 28, 1855, when the first train 
reached Panama from Colon. The line was forty- 
seven miles long, built of Belgian rails and on a gauge 
of five feet. 

The standard gauge in the United States is four 
feet nine and a half inches, so that all locomotives and 
cars used on the Panama railroad have to be specially 
built with wheels set farther apart. When it comes to 
disposing of surplus equipment after the canal is fin- 
ished, the government will have to allow for the cost 
of modifying the rolling stock from the five-foot to 
the standard gauge. It is estimated that the axles on 
locomotives may be shortened at an average cost of 
$750 a locomotive, and for cars, from %2y to $31 each. 

California gold-seekers used the railroad as far rs 
it was built during the years immediately following 
1850 and made the rest of the trip across the Isthmus 
by muleback. There were no buccaneers waiting to 
relieve them, as they had the Spaniards, of their treas- 
ure, but bandits and outlaws haunted the route with 
almost equal success. Thus the railroad had an in- 
come from the start, and ten years after completion 
it was known as the best-paying property in the 
world. 

The total cost had been $7,407,553, or about $158,- 
000 a mile. Dividends were paid every year from 
1853 to 1892, and from 1901 to 1903, when it became 
United States property. The largest year's earnings 
was in 1868 when 44 percentum was paid, or $4,337,- 
668.48 in both dividends and undivided profits. Total 

34 



RAILROAD 

earnings from 1855 to 1898 were $94,958,890-3^ J 
operating expenses, $57,036,234.46; leaving for sur- 
plus and dividends, $37,922,655. Rather eloquent 
figures as to the Isthmian freight and passenger traffic ! 

The great prosperity of the railroad suffered a 
serious set-back with the completion of the California 
overland railroad in 1869. Thenceforward the valu- 
able bullion shipments avoided Panama as well as pas- 
senger and freight business. The company's business 
shows a steady decline from that year, and some 
wooden-headed management contributed to the mo- 
mentum. Still it was a valuable property, and to the 
French a very expensive property, as they found in 
1 88 1, when they had to buy the railroad in order to 
obtain a concession to build a canal. 

Colombia turned to the French, after negotiating 
fruitlessly with the United States over a canal con- 
cession, and the company headed by M. de Lesseps 
was granted a right of way provided the railroad 
would suspend the provision in its concession giving 
it the say-so as to water communication. Freight 
rates were boosted on all French company shipments 
until in desperation they bought the road for $18,094,- 
000, in 1 88 1, paying considerably more than it was 
worth, or $250 a share for sixty-eight seventieths of 
the capital stock. 

The French neglected the commercial possibilities 
even more than the American owners had, though 
dividends were earned during the life of the first com- 
pany. When the United States bought the interests 
of the French company, in 1904, the Panama Railroad 

35 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

was one of the properties transferred. It was sadly 
run down, but under the Americans it was made over 
into a modernly equipped and operated system, though 
subordinated as a commercial proposition to the con- 
struction of the canal. Chief Engineer Wallace sug- 
gested that it be double-tracked, or four-tracked, and 
up-to-date ocean terminals for handling a great freight 
business be built, with the idea of supplying cheap and 
swift transit pending the completion of the canal, but 
this view was abandoned by succeeding engineers, 
until in 19 12 the Secretary of War cut down the 
amount of commercial business the road should handle 
so that canal shipments might have uninterrupted 
right of way. 

Doubtless mahogany, ebony and other rare hard 
woods have not been used in cutting ties for other 
railroads, but the Americans have dug up ties of those 
woods that had been in the ground sixty years and 
still were in good condition. The quaint hollowed out 
Belgian rails had to be replaced with heavy American 
types. Such rolling stock as was used by the Ameri- 
cans was for light hauling. 

Passenger rates dropped from $25 a one-way ticket 
in 1855 to $2.40 under the Americans to-day. The 
trip from Colon to Panama is two hours and a half 
and the coaches are painted yellow because that color 
best stands the Isthmian climate. In the fiscal year 
ended June 30, 191 1, the Panama Railroad under 
American control earned $2,398,177.88 from freight 
and $686,991 from passenger business. The number 

36 



RAILROAD 

of passengers carried during the year was 2,999,500, 
and in 191 2 a larger traffic was recorded. 

The plans for the canal as adopted by the Americans 
in 1906 played havoc with the right of way of the 
railroad, so in June, 1907, the work of relocating it 
back among the hills out of reach of Gatun Lake was 
begun. After five years' work, or as long as it re- 
quired to build the original Hne in 1850- 185 5, the new 
line was opened to traffic in 19 12. The full line, how- 
ever, was used only for freight trains, as the Canal 
Zone towns mostly are on the old line, along the Cule- 
bra cut. 

This twentieth century Panama Railroad has cost 
$9,000,000, as compared with the cost of the nine- 
teenth century road, $7,000,000, an increase of $2,000,- 
000 after a lapse of sixty years. On the face of things 
the performance in 1850- 185 5 seems more creditable 
than in 1907-1912, because then a pathless jungle had 
to be conquered when the Isthmus was a death trap; 
whereas now the Americans had a force of workers 
organized, they had the equipment on the ground with 
which to do the work and the entire resources of the 
canal organization as to quarters, subsistence, and 
medical attention were within easy reach. Not con- 
sidering the cost, the relocated line is a beautiful piece 
of engineering work. 

The dream of a Pan-American Railroad has been 
entertained ever since steam locomotion came into use. 
When several gaps are filled in, there will be railroad 
communication through Mexico, Guatemala, and Nica- 
ragua to Costa Rica, which adjoins Panama. The 

37 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Republic of Panama has been planning an interior 
railroad system that would be part of an all-rail route 
from the United States to the canal. Before many 
years it is likely that a bridge will span the canal in 
a railroad system that reaches from Canada through 
Panama to the mainland of South America, thence 
down the West Coast to Valparaiso. 

In connection with the railroad, the government has 
operated a steamship line to New York, from Colon, 
the fleet at present consisting of six ships, the Ancon, 
Cristobal, Panama, Colon, Advance, and Allianca. 
These ships have transported the larger part of canal 
supplies from the Atlantic seaboard. Canal employees 
get passenger rates of $20 or $30 for one-way trips 
when taking vacations, and other steamship lines grant 
smaller reductions. The regular rate from New York 
is $75. It is the only line to Panama that flies our 
flag. 



38 



CHAPTER V 

THE FRENCH IN PANAMA 

OPINIONS as to the advisability of an Isthmian 
canal ran all the way from the attitude of 
Philip II, of Spain, that it would be impious to tamper 
with natural land configurations as arranged by Provi- 
dence, to the bold determination of the French to do 
at Panama what they had done at Suez. 

Ferdinand de Lesseps and his Panama career vindi- 
cate strikingly the truth of the adage that nothing 
succeeds like success. The French Panama Canal 
Company was floated on the strength of his achieve- 
ment in cutting a sea-level passage from the Mediter- 
ranean to the Red Sea, thus making an island of 
Africa. 

When he turned his attention to Panama as a new 
field for glory, the French people enthusiastically ap- 
plauded his audacity and, what is more significant and 
substantial, invested, first and last, $265,000,000 in 
the enterprise. American capital entered practically 
not at all into the French project, and not a great deal 
of outside European capital, the French middle and 
peasant classes being the principal shareholders. 

There had been talk and paper negotiations aplenty 
before M. de Lesseps became active. In 1838 a French 
syndicate sought to interest their government in the 
enterprise but the plan fell through, and the failure 

39 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

later of the French companies to build the canal can- 
not be censured as a failure of the French government, 
which never financed it as a national enterprise as has 
been done in the successful American attempt. 

President Simon Bolivar, of New Grenada, or 
Colombia, in 1827, had ordered a study made of the 
Isthmus to ascertain facts about a route for a canal 
or railroad. Any concession that might be granted 
must come from his government. The various Ameri- 
can nibbles at the idea have been noted, and as a way 
of stirring us up to real action, Colombia paid as- 
siduous court to France. Gen. Stephen Turr, a native 
of Hungary, in 1876 obtained a concession, in as- 
sociation with Lieut. Lucien N. B. Wyse, who figured 
prominently in all the later French operations. Count 
de Lesseps was interested by Wyse who, in 1878, re- 
vived the concession on the following terms : Its life 
was for ninety-nine years after the completion of the 
canal, allowing two years to organize the company and 
twelve years in which to dig the canal. Colombia was 
to receive $250,000 annually after the seventy-sixth 
year of the life of the concession and it expressly was 
stipulated that though the French company might sell 
to other private companies, it could not sell out to any 
government, a provision which played a vital part in 
the transactions leading up to the American control 
in 1904. 

The French were theatrical in their plans for launch- 
ing the enterprise. A world congress of engineers 
was invited to assemble in Paris in May, 1879, to de- 
cide upon the type and cost of the canal. M. de 

40 



FRENCH 

Lesseps presided and guided the decision to a sea- 
level type, the same as at Suez. There were eleven 
Americans in the assembly but this was the extent 
of American interest. It was at this congress that 
the first suggestion of a dam at Gatun for a lock-type 
canal was made by Godin de Lepinay, a French en- 
gineer. The sea-level advocates advanced the plan of 
digging a great tunnel for ten miles through the Cor- 
dilleras and so divert the Chagres River into the Pa- 
cific Ocean away from the canal, as that river was use- 
less in a sea-level type. 

Under the stimulus of these proceedings, the new 
company's stock was over-subscribed by the admiring 
countrymen of the great de Lesseps, the first issue be- 
ing for $60,000,000. M. de Lesseps then made a 
spectacular trip to Panama, arriving at Colon on De- 
cember 30, 1879. The Panamans and foreign colony 
received him with wild acclaim as the forerunner of 
a golden stream of money about to enrich their coun- 
try, and as the first concrete step toward realizing the 
dream of four centuries. 

The first blast of an explosive in the construction 
of an Isthmian canal was set off by one of the young 
daughters of M. de Lesseps at Culebra on January 10, 
1880. After several weeks of banqueting. Count de 
Lesseps left for the United States to stir the imagina- 
tion of the Americans over the enterprise. About the 
only result was to attract the attention of some con- 
tractors to the work, notably in the case of the Slaven 
brothers who, previous to their Panama adventure, 
had seen no experience in construction work, but who 

41 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

did the most creditable work on the project, dredging 
thirteen miles, making fortunes for themselves and 
leaving machines which the Americans repaired and 
used from 1904 onward. 

As estimated by M. de Lesseps, the sea-level canal 
was to cost $131,600,000, although the Paris congress 
had gone higher in its figures. He was, of course, 
sadly mistaken in this estimate and the French ulti- 
mately spent twice that amount before throwing up 
the sponge. Conditions totally were different from 
those at Suez. There the sandy dunes rose no higher 
than forty feet above sea-level at any point and ex- 
cavation work comparatively was easy. In Panama a 
mountainous configuration with solid rock a short 
depth beneath the surface had to be faced, with tor- 
rential streams to be controlled and diverted. 

Operations went ahead rapidly from 1880 onward, 
the method being to let contracts for the different 
phases of the work. The canal started near Colon, in 
Limon Bay, and was to follow the valley of the Cha- 
gres River for about thirty miles, thence through the 
continental divide to the Pacific, three miles west of 
Panama, about where the present canal begins. 

By 1885, however, extravagance and graft had 
emptied the company's treasury. The contractors, as 
a rule, did little and exacted much. It became ap- 
parent, too, that a sea-level type presented stagger- 
ing difficulties. M. de Lesseps gave his consent to a 
change in plans to a lock type, as had been recom- 
mended by the engineer Lepinay, but the dam was 
to be at Bohio, instead of at Gatun. Bohio is seven- 

42 



FRENCH 

teen miles from the Caribbean, while Gatun is only- 
seven miles distant from that sea. 

All the theatrical methods conceivable were em- 
ployed to float a new bond issue for $160,000,000, 
but the public had grown dubious over the success of 
the enterprise. The amount was raised, however, 
and was poured into the project with more millions 
until 1889 when, after $234,795,017 had been in- 
vested, the company became bankrupt. Of this vast 
amount, $157,224,689 had been invested on the Isth- 
mus, the remainder having gone to organization ex- 
penses, for promotion, and overhead expenses gen- 
erally. For engineering and construction, $89,434,- 
225 had been spent; for machinery and materials, 
$29,722,856; for buildings, hospitals, etc., $15,397,- 
282. Various needs and graft absorbed the rest. 

The French treated their white employees with ex- 
travagant generosity. Living accommodations were 
on a scale of open-handed liberality. Little was done, 
beyond building hospitals, to conquer the bad health 
conditions of the Isthmus, and, while the French left 
patterns for much of the later American activities, 
the sanitary control of the jungle distinctively is an 
American triumph. The death rate among French 
employees on the canal was from two to three times 
as high as under the Americans. 

Older natives in Panama still speak of the period 
of French operations as the " temps de luxe." M. de 
Lesseps was charged with fraudulent manipulation 
of the company's affairs, but escaped punishment for 
his alleged wrongs. There was graft everywhere, and 

43 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

when the Americans invoiced the property left by 
the French they found stores of articles that had been 
bought in quantities absurdly beyond the needs of the 
enterprise. The purchase of the Panama Railroad, 
while at a high figure, was the only investment by the 
French that approximated sound judgment. 

In 1890, an extension of ten years to the time for 
completing the canal was granted by Colombia, and 
subsequently extensions were permitted that advanced 
the Hfe of the concession until October 31, 191 o. A 
new Panama Canal Company was organized in 1894 
with a capital of $13,000,000, and while it spent this 
amount and more, it never attained the momentum of 
the first company. The maximum force under the 
first company was 25,000 men and under the second 
regime 3,000. 

The total excavation by the French in Panama was 
78,000,000 yards, of which the first company took 
out 65,000,000 yards. Between Gold Hill and Con- 
tractors Hill, where the surface at the center line of 
the canal was 312 feet above sea-level, the French 
dug down 161 feet, this being the deepest cut they 
made. It is here that the work they did was useful 
to the American plans for a canal, but out of all their 
work only 29,908,000 yards were excavated from the 
present American route. For years before the Ameri- 
cans came the French did just enough work to keep 
their concession alive. 

Summing up, the efforts of the French in Panama 
were a lamentable failure, but it probably is true that 
a private company of any nation would have met the 

44 



FRENCH 

same fate. The riot of graft that attended the French 
effort is its chief blot, just as the honest construction 
of the canal by the American government is its chief 
honor. Indisputably, the French efforts made the 
American effort easier. Much that they did stood 
as landmarks to guide our way. Much that they failed 
to do emphasized the work cut out for us before suc- 
cess could be attained. 

The mechanical equipment we took over from the 
French, the houses and hospitals, and especially the 
engineering records, were invaluable from the start 
of American operations and much still is in use. In 
191 2 there were 112 French locomotives, seven ladder 
dredges, hundreds of dump cars, machine-shop equip- 
ment, and other materials in profusion actively em- 
ployed in canal construction. 

An effort was made by the French company in 1898 
to interest the United States government in the en- 
terprise, provided permission could be secured from 
Colombia, but this failed, and the plan of 1903, for 
turning the property over to the United States, was 
its successor. 

To-day, as one views the abandoned French equip- 
ment, overgrown by the luxuriant tropical vegetation, 
he is reminded of the retreat from Moscow. The 
quaint locomotives and machinery lying desolate and 
rusting away suggest the batteries that Napoleon left 
in the Russian snows. Indeed, there was much of the 
same exquisite French dash about the two enterprises 
that ended so disastrously. 



45 



CHAPTER VI 

THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

FOREIGN activities in Panama were watched, 
officially and unofficially, by the Americans with 
profound interest, and with a desire that the construc- 
tion of a canal should be the work of the United 
States. The thought of communication between the 
oceans being in European hands was distasteful to 
our statesmen. 

The Monroe doctrine seemed broad enough to shut 
out foreign governments, but not private corporations 
of such governments, from acquiring the territory 
through which to dig the canal. However noisily 
the Monroe doctrine might be flaunted by the orators 
of the United States, our international position in 
1850 did not give it anything like the weight that has 
attached to it ever since the Spanish-American War 
woke Europe to our strength. 

In 1852, when the Panama Railroad was being 
built, a captain of a company in the Fourth Regiment 
of Infantry, Ulysses S. Grant, crossed the Isthmus 
at Panama, on his way to the new California post. 
There were 1,800 men in the command, which arrived 
at Colon on July i6th of that year. They used the 
new railroad as far as it had been constructed, twenty 
or thirty miles, and the remainder of the trip was 
by the traditional mule-back system. An epidemic 

46 



AMERICANS 

of cholera broke out, costing the lives of 80 men, 
and the general hardships of the transit deeply im- 
pressed Captain Grant with the need of a better 
passage. 

Several American exploring parties had been on the 
Isthmus, and, in 1854, Lieut. Arthur Strain, with 
twenty-seven companions, attempted to penetrate the 
jungle. They got lost, and after ninety days of liv- 
ing death he and two or three of the men reached 
Panama. Every fact that was secured about the 
geography of Panama by any nation cost human 
life. 

President Lincoln, in 1863, when he was freeing 
the negro slaves, cast his eyes upon the Chiriqui prov- 
ince of Panama as a suitable place for colonizing the 
negroes of the South after the Civil War, but his 
untimely death prevented the opportunity to work out 
this idea. 

The Senate, in 1866, asked Secretary of the Navy 
Welles to supply it with information as to the feasi- 
bility of a canal through the Darien region of Pan- 
ama. Admiral Charles H. Davis a year later re- 
ported adversely to this route which, although the 
narrowest place on the Isthmus, had a mountain 
barrier with an elevation of 700 feet to make a sea- 
level canal an impossible undertaking. 

That Captain Grant, who had crossed the Isthmus 
in 1852, became President in 1869, ^^^ the very same 
year he directed Gen. Stephen A. Hurlbut to nego- 
tiate a treaty with Colombia for a Panama canal. 
He knew from experience how advantageous it would 

47 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

be to his country. Such a treaty was signed at Bogota 
on January 26, 1870, but the United States Senate 
did not ratify it and the Senate of Colombia mu- 
tilated it. Somehow the two governments did not 
get along well in those days. 

President Grant then sent Admiral Ammen to Nica- 
ragua to investigate that route, more in a pique at 
Colombia than from a belief in its availability. Co- 
lombia returned the feeling by turning to the French 
and giving Lieut. Wyse a concession. At the instance 
of President Grant the Panama route again was sur- 
veyed by Commanders E. P. Lull and T. O. Selfridge, 
at the Chagres River and in the Darien region, in 
1875, but from this time onward the French had the 
center of the stage. 

Their spread-eagle operations followed by a col- 
lapse in 1889, reorganization in 1894, and half-hearted 
efforts until 1898 served rather to make the world 
and the Americans think that a canal was a white 
elephant proposition. The Spanish-American War, 
however, suddenly brought the American people to a 
realization of the vital necessity, from a military view- 
point alone, of an interoceanic canal. 

Day by day as the battleship Oregon steamed 
around Cape Horn this lesson was impressed upon the 
people. A 10,000-mile journey could have been saved 
by a Panama canal. The war over, and peace allow- 
ing the country and the government to consider other 
things. President McKinley reorganized the Isthmian 
Canal Commission which he had appointed in 1897 
with the following personnel: 

48 



AMERICANS 

Admiral John G. Walker, Chairman, 

Samuel Pasco, 

George S. Morison, 

LiEUT.-CoL. Oswald H. Ernst, U. S. A., 

Col. p. C. Hains, U. S. A., 

Lewis M. Haupt, 

Alfred Noble, 

William H. Burr, 

Prof. Emory R. Johnson. 

This commission was appointed in March, 1899, 
with instructions to investigate all Central American 
routes. The French canal company by this time was 
in a situation where it was seeking a soft place to 
fall. Hope of financing the project by private capi- 
tal absolutely was dead in France. Only by a sale 
to other capitalists or to some government, Colombia 
being willing, could the shareholders hope to get any- 
thing out of their stupendous investment. And it 
was not so many years distant before their conces- 
sion would expire and their property revert to Co- 
lombia. 

William Nelson Cromwell, a New York lawyer, was 
the counsel for the canal company and the Panama 
Railroad Company. He was, by all odds, the brain- 
iest man connected with the French enterprise, and 
the task of guiding the company to a solution of its 
troubles devolved upon him. Naturally he was 
elated with the revival of interest in a canal on the 
part of the United States, and he was indefatigable, 
in many accomplished ways, in bringing the Panama 

49 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

route to the notice of the Commission. P. Bunau- 
Varilla, a Frenchman, also was active in interesting 
Senator Mark Hanna, and other official and private 
Americans, in the French project. 

The Walker Commission unofficially asked the 
French company what their property might be bought 
for, and when quoted a price of $101,141,500, prompt- 
ly decided that Nicaragua looked better. The report 
made on November 16, 1901, by the Commission 
frankly stated that the Panama route was preferable, 
but the price asked by the French company was pro- 
hibitive. The Commission dropped the remark that 
$40,000,000 was about what the French holdings were 
worth to the United States. 

The astute Mr. Cromwell probably was not greatly 
disturbed by this report, but the shareholders thought 
$40,000,000 looked like a windfall to a bankrupt con- 
cern, even if it had invested $265,000,000. A sixth 
loaf decidedly was better than none at all. They 
made it be known that $40,000,000 would strike a 
trade. It has not been admitted, but the first valu- 
ation by Mr. Cromwell and associates doubtless was 
a " feeler " which would make the price ultimately 
agreed upon look like a bargain for the United 
States. 

At any rate they fell off their perch in a hurry, 
and when they had agreed to the Commission's valu- 
ation, the report to the President promptly was re- 
vised in favor of the Panama route. Admiral Walker 
probably played his own little game in first recom- 
mending Nicaragua to send a chill down the French 

50 



AMERICANS 

company's spine. On the outside one cannot tell how 
much theatrical play both sides indulged, but it is not 
a bad guess to believe that there was four-flushing all 
around. 



?^ 



CHAPTER VII 

THE ROOSEVELT IMPETUS 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT, upon assuming 
the office of President, promised to carry out 
the policies of President McKinley, and, so far as the 
canal policy is concerned, he succeeded so eminently 
that a deliberate judgment, formed from a perspective 
view of the whole undertaking, warrants the asser- 
tion that his energy, decision, and sound judgment 
made an interoceanic canal possible in this generation. 

The moment his dynamic personality got behind the 
idea it received an impetus, and he bucked the line of 
obstacles that arose in the path of the project until 
he retired in 1909, when the enterprise was advanced 
beyond the possibility of failure. 

It was to President Roosevelt that the Walker Com- 
mission reported in November, 1901. His first mes- 
sage to Congress urged immediate action, and, after 
a good deal of wrangling over the Hepburn act in 
favor of Nicaragua, the Spooner act was passed on 
June 28, 1902. The Nicaraguan route never has de- 
served the attention it received, for the natural drift 
of commerce and travel had gone unerringly for four 
centuries to Panama, like a flow seeking the course 
of least resistance. But the advocates of the Nica- 
raguan route created such opposition as to call forth 
from the President the exertion of the strongest 

52 



ROOSEVELT 

pressure to compel the selection of the Panama 
route. 

The Spooner act, written by Senator John C. 
Spooner, of Wisconsin, provided for an Isthmian 
Canal Commission of seven members, and authorized 
the Panama route, if the French property could be 
bought for $40,000,000, and a right of way could 
be obtained from Colombia. In the event such con- 
ditions could not be met, it authorized the Nicaraguan 
route, and seemed to lean toward a lock-type canal. 
An immediate appropriation of $10,000,000 was made 
available for preliminary expenses. 

President Roosevelt now had the authority he de- 
sired for going ahead with the project. Secretary of 
State John Hay and the Minister from Colombia, Jose 
V. Concha, immediately began corresponding over the 
granting of a strip of territory in Panama for the 
prosecution of the enterprise, with William Nelson 
Cromwell in the forefront of all the negotiations. The 
sale of the French property hinged upon securing the 
consent of Colombia. 

A study of Mr. Cromwell and the important part 
he played throughout the whole career of the canal 
project leads to the conclusion that he did nothing 
more blameworthy than President Roosevelt did, while 
justice requires the admission that he gratuitously 
aided the government in a number of important par- 
ticulars. 

Minister Concha, with Mr. Cromwell's aid, drew 
up a treaty which was presented as a memorandum 
to Secretary Hay on April 18, 1902. This treaty, as 

53 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

well as the Herran treaty that succeeded it, had a 
number of impossible provisions, viewed in the light 
of our canal experience. It authorized the French 
company to sell its property to the United States and 
authorized the United States to build, operate, and 
protect the canal, the concession to run for one hun- 
dred years, and be renewable at the discretion of the 
United States. A commission, jointly appointed by 
the United States and Colombia, was to govern the 
Canal Zone and supervise its sanitation, Colombia, 
however, remaining sovereign over the territory. One 
article bound the United States to a declaration that 
it had no ideas of territorial expansion in Central 
America; the United States was to build waterworks 
and sewers and pave streets in Panama and Colon; 
the United States guaranteed the sovereignty of Co- 
lombia and all its territory against all the world; 
Colombia retained the function of policing the Canal 
Zone, but in the event of its failure to do so, the 
United States could intervene until peace was re- 
stored, then withdraw. The canal was to be finished 
fourteen years after the adoption of the treaty with a 
possible extension of twelve years, everything to re- 
vert to Colombia if the canal was not begun within 
five years and completed within twenty-five years. 
Colombia renounced the $250,000 annually paid by 
the Panama Railroad, but was to receive $7,000,000 
in cash. There were provisions granting the right 
to use any rivers and lands necessary for the canal, 
and admitting canal supplies free of duty, giving free 

54 




CUnedinst photo, Washington, D. C. 

President Roosevelt in 1503. 



ROOSEVELT 

passage to Colombian warships, and insuring the neu- 
trahty of the canal. 

Colombia sent a new Minister, Thomas Herran, 
in 1903, who negotiated a treaty along the same lines, 
except that Colombia was to receive $10,000,000 in- 
stead of $7,000,000 for the Canal Zone. Had the 
treaty been adopted, it is a safe conclusion to draw 
that interminable and exasperating friction would 
have developed between the two countries, for even 
under our one-sided treaty with the Republic of Pan- 
ama, in 1904, there was a quarrel over sovereignty 
and other questions. The provision giving Colombia 
the police affairs was impossible. Only an extended 
visit to the 'Isthmus can give an adequate idea of how 
essential it has been to the United States to have abso- 
lutely a free hand in the Canal Zone. 

President Jose M. Marroquin, of Colombia, in this 
year, 1902, asked the United States to maintain unin- 
terrupted passage over the Panama Railroad, during 
a serious revolution in the province, and promised in 
return to give the United States a treaty for a Canal 
Zone. As a result of American intervention and good 
offices, peace was patched up between the insurgents 
and Colombia on November 21, 1902. We had per- 
formed our part of the agreement, and now looked 
to Colombia to perform its part. 

President Marroquin was in good faith, but fac- 
tional fighting in the Congress of Colombia, with his 
enemies in the ascendency, showed the chances of a 
treaty to be dubious. The American Minister deliv- 
ered a warning to the government of Colombia, on 

55 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

June 13, 1903, that it would be expected to live up 
to its solemn promise of 1902. The influences be- 
hind the opposition to the treaty in the Colombian 
Senate have not been definitely classified, but it is 
more than a supposition that certain American finan- 
cial interests, which opposed any canal, took a hand 
to the extent of intimating that a country so " rotten 
rich " as the United States could pay more than $10,- 
000,000 for a Canal Zone. 

But there is another factor that is more illuminat- 
ing. The concession of the French company would 
expire in 19 10,* and by waiting seven years Colombia 
could get the $40,000,000 the United States was will- 
ing to pay for its property. There was one bar to 
this in the concession of the Panama Railroad which 
had many years to run, and which gave the railroad 
the right to decide whether a canal could be built 
across the Isthmus. Still, indisputably, the position 
of Colombia would have been strengthened immeas- 
urably by the lapsing of the French canal concession, 
and the people of the United States have only to ask 
themselves what they would do if they had a prop- 
erty which in seven years would be worth $40,000,- 
000 more than it was to-day. There is not a doubt 
that popular sentiment would say, as one faction 
said in Colombia, wait for the enhancement before 
selling. 

On August 12, 1903, the Senate of Colombia killed 
the treaty after the House had passed it. President 

* Acknowledgment for this and other facts is made to the Canal 
Zone Pilot, edited by W. C. Haskins. 

56 



ROOSEVELT 

Marroquin had exerted himself to the utmost to save 
the treaty, doubtless sensing the quality of the man 
in the White House, but to no avail, and another way 
out for the canal project v^as already taking form. 



57 



CHAPTER VIII 

TAKING THE CANAL ZONE 

ANYONE who expected Theodore Roosevelt to 
, wait patiently and untie the Gordian knot of 
diplomacy that held the canal project in abeyance sim- 
ply did not know the temperament of the Chief Ex- 
ecutive. 

His inherited administration was more than half 
gone. If he desired to make a real showing before 
the opening of the battle for the Presidency in 1904, 
decisive action was necessary. The course of Colom- 
bia indicated clearly to him, and to the people of 
Panama, that nothing could be expected in the imme- 
diate future in the way of a satisfactory treaty, and 
the enemies of the canal in that country seemed to be 
firmly intrenched in the Congress. 

Just when the idea of a revolution as a means of 
obtaining what diplomacy had failed to obtain, origi- 
nated, and who originated it, are not matters of clear 
record, but, in the spring of 1903, threats freely were 
made in Panama that if Colombia did not grant a 
treaty to the United States, providing for a canal, the 
province of Panama would consider that its interests 
had not been conserved by Colombia, and might pro- 
ceed to act for itself. 

Panama's relations with the parent government at 
Bogota, from 1821, the year of independence from 

58 



REVOLUTION 

Spain, to 1903, the year of independence from Co- 
lombia, had been characterized by intermittent revo- 
lutions which never had attained a decisive and final 
result. 

There had been fifty-three revolutions in fifty-seven 
years, the most sanguinary occurring in the years 
1827, 1840, i860, 1900, and 1902. But any advan- 
tages so gained by Panama had been lost by volun- 
tary or involuntary resumption of subordinate rela- 
tions to Colombia, with the net result going to prove 
that Panama, unassisted, never could hope to achieve 
independence from the mother country. 

The United States, on many occasions, had inter- 
vened in these quarrels between Panama and Colom- 
bia, frequently on the invitation of Colombia, and 
always to maintain the neutrality of the Panama Rail- 
road, as well as to preserve general American prop- 
erty interests. An American warship was a familiar 
sight in Colon or Panama harbors. 

These interventions were based on our treaty with 
Colombia, ratified in 1846. As noted before, this 
treaty provided for the joint sovereignty of Colom- 
bia and the United States over any canal that might 
be built in Panama, and further guaranteed the neu- 
trality of the Panama Railroad. By this treaty, and 
the Clayton-Bulwer treaty with England, over any 
canal that might be built in Nicaragua, the United 
States hoped to keep foreign governments out of 
Central America so far as an interoceanic canal was 
concerned. 

Colombia, in 1902, appealed to the United States 

59 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

under its treaty, to maintain the neutrality of the Pan- 
ama Railroad, during the most important revolution 
that Panama ever had attempted, and the military 
intervention by the United States in that year largely 
enabled Colombia to crush the revolution. 

It is important to note that, prior to 1903, the 
United States had maintained the attitude consistently 
that any action it took in Panama was in fulfillment 
of this treaty of 1846, and leaned toward the gov- 
ernment of Colombia as a sovereign power engaged 
in suppressing the fitful insurrections on the part of 
Panama. 

By maintaining the neutrality of the railroad, 
through the use of Marines, the United States kept 
the line open, and so enabled Colombia to get its 
troops across the Isthmus to strike down the revolu- 
tionists. Had not the United States thus assisted 
Colombia, it is doubtful if she could have retained 
sovereignty over Panama without the exertion of con- 
siderably stronger forces than were employed. 

Colombia had promised, in consideration of the in- 
tervention of 1902, a treaty to the United States for 
a right of way for a canal in Panama. Weeks before 
this treaty was killed, on August 12, 1903, a few lead- 
ing business and professional men in Panama saw the 
drift, and so did the French Panama Canal Company 
and the Panama Railroad Company. The Panamans 
wanted the prosperity that would come from the 
money the United States would invest in Panama, and 
the two companies wanted to sell out before their 
concessions should expire, and at a price, $40,000,000, 

60 



REVOLUTION 

which the United States had agreed upon, and which 
was the highest offer they had any hope of receiving. 

Simultaneously with the killing of the treaty by 
the Colombian Senate, a revolutionary Junta of 
wealthy Panamans and resident Americans were in 
New York and Washington broaching their plan of a 
revolution and separation from Colombia as a way for 
the United States to get a Canal Zone. They au- 
thorized one of their number, Mr. J. Gabriel Duque, 
owner of the Panama Lottery, and a daily newspaper, 
to visit Secretary of State John Hay to ascertain the 
part the United States would play in the scheme. 

The plan proposed was that Panama should pro- 
claim its independence from Colombia on a given date, 
to be followed by the recognition of its independence 
by the United States, and the signing of a treaty with 
the new republic which would give our government 
the desired right of way for a canal. Then the United 
States could buy the French canal interests and the 
Panama Railroad according to the Spooner act. 

Mr. Duque was convinced by his conference with 
Secretary Hay that the United States was in a mood 
to try any plan that promised an early solution of the 
problem of securing a Canal Zone. Secretary Hay, 
of course, committed nothing to paper, and talked in 
a negative rather than a positive manner about the 
part the United States would play in a revolution, but 
he did suggest that September 22d, the date originally 
set for the revolution, was perhaps a trifle premature ; 
that they might do better to wait a few weeks. Sep- 
tember 226. was the day the Congress of Colombia 

61 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

had intended to adjourn, and therefore the last day 
that this body might reverse its action and ratify the 
treaty. The Colombian Congress actually did not ad- 
journ until October 30th, and the date of the revolu- 
tion was accordingly advanced to November 4, 1903. 

The Junta went back to Panama to make their 
preparations. Minister Herran, representing Colom- 
bia at Washington, immediately notified his govern- 
ment of this conference, and its import, and urged 
that the garrison at Panama be strengthened. Presi- 
dent Marroquin, of Colombia, did not follow this 
advice, doubtless hoping for a change of sentiment in 
his country that would ratify the treaty. He instead 
showed his friendliness to Panama by appointing as 
its Governor, Don Domingo de Obaldia, a known 
friend of the treaty and of the province. This and 
other actions by President Marroquin seemed to create 
favorable conditions for the success of the revolution. 

About four hundred Colombian soldiers, under Gen. 
Huertas, constituted the garrison of Panama. This 
commander was won over to the cause of the revolu- 
tionary Junta, thus giving them a clear field for their 
prospective operations, provided Colombia did not 
send fresh troops. Colombia could send reenforce- 
ments, either from Cartagena, on the Atlantic side, 
or from Buenaventura, on the Pacific side. But Sep- 
tember and nearly all of October passed without any 
such action. 

In the latter part of October, two gunboats of 
Colombia, in the harbor of Panama, on the Pacific 
side, asked the Panama Railroad to supply them with 

62 



REVOLUTION 

coal so that they might go to Buenaventura for troops 
to add to the Panama garrison. J. R. Shaler, super- 
intendent of the railroad, was acting with the Junta 
as the representative of the French interests in the 
revolutionary scheme. At the Junta's suggestion, he 
refused to supply the coal, although the railroad had 
followed such a practice from time immemorial. He 
evaded the request by saying that the coal was in 
Colon, on the Atlantic side. This action, therefore, 
headed off the arrival of troops from the Pacific port 
of Colombia. 

All that remained to be done, to create perfect con- 
ditions for carrying out the secession, was to prevent 
the arrival of Colombian troops from the Atlantic side. 
This, it may be acknowledged, was the most vital task 
of the whole plan, and it devolved upon the United 
States. The understanding the Junta had with our 
State Department was that the United States would 
maintain the neutrality of the Panama Railroad, con- 
struing neutrality, in this instance, to mean that Colom- 
bian troops could not pass over the line. 

Such a construction of the treaty of 1846 was un- 
precedented before 1903. The United States had un- 
dertaken, in effect, to prevent the passage of Colombian 
troops over a railroad which it had chartered and the 
concession of which expressly provided for the pas- 
sage of Colombia's troops over the line at any time. 
It justified this unusual action on the argument that 
it was thereby maintaining the neutrality of the rail- 
road as provided by the treaty. 

Our State Department was kept advised of the 

63 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

movement of Colombian troops, so that when two ships 
left Cartagena, on October 30th, for Colon, the gun- 
boat Nashville simultaneously received orders to pro- 
ceed to Colon, arriving there on November 2d. The 
Colombian troops, numbering about five hundred men, 
arrived on November 3d. Everyone recognized that 
the crucial moment of the revolutionary scheme had 
arrived.. 

Commander John Hubbard, of the Nashville, had 
orders to keep the Panama Railroad open, not allow- 
ing either Colombian or revolutionary troops to be 
transported over it. This was termed maintaining 
the neutrality of the railroad. It should be noted, 
however, that when this order was issued to the Nash- 
ville, no revolution had started, and, outside of a few 
Panaman capitalists, the people of Panama knew noth- 
ing about it except in the way of rumor. The Junta 
had appointed a committee to " let the people know of 
the impending event," but as the people were not nec- 
essary to the success of the plan, so long as the United 
States did its part, they were not specially considered 
or consulted by the Junta. Hence, the order to prevent 
the passage of revolutionary troops not only was pre- 
mature, showing the thorough knowledge the United 
States had of the revolutionary plan, but it was like- 
wise superfluous. Still, we hardly could have kept a 
straight face over the order if the nonexistent revolu- 
tionists had not been included. 

Generals Tovar and Amaya, of the Colombian 
troops, left them in Colon while they went across ahead 
to take command of the Panama garrison. The ar- 

64 



REVOLUTION 

rival of the reen for cements was a day earlier than the 
date set for the revolution, which was November 4th, 
so the Junta had to advance its plans a day. It 
hastily was decided to pull off the event on November 

3d. 

As a first step in this decision, the two generals 

were arrested, as also was Governor Obaldia. The 
Panama garrison under Gen. Huertas had been fixed 
weeks before, so no danger lay in that quarter. An 
ordinary street mob of a city followed the lead of the 
Junta in these actions. One of the Colombian gun- 
boats in the harbor of Panama fired two shots over 
the city, one of which by chance struck a nonbelliger- 
ent Chinaman, who had the honor of being the only 
victim of the revolution. The land fort replied and 
the gunboat precipitately retired, leaving Panama in 
the hands of the triumphant Junta. All was lovely if 
the United States should perform its part at Colon. 

The news of these proceedings in Panama did not 
reach Colon until the next morning, November 4th. 
Col. Torres, who had been left in command of the 
Colombian troops there, immediately demanded a train 
by 2 o'clock that afternoon, a refusal to grant which, 
he declared, would be followed by the death of every 
American in the city. Mr. Shaler, the railroad super- 
intendent, following the instructions of the Junta, and 
the wishes of our State Department and the French 
interests, refused the transportation, and notified Com- 
mander Hubbard, of the Nashville, of his decision. 

There only were 192 men all told on the Nashville, 
while the Colombian troops numbered 500, not count- 

6s 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

ing the assistance they would get from the native popu- 
lation, if the day seemed to be going against the Amer- 
icans. The employees of the railroad, with 42 men 
from the Nashville, fortified themselves in a stone rail- 
road shed, while the women and children were placed 
on steamers in the harbor for safety. The Nashville 
drew up close to assist with its guns in the defense. 

It was a tense situation where the slightest overt 
act on either side would have precipitated a great loss 
of life. The Colombians outnumbered the marines 
ten to one, but when 2 o'clock came, they had thought 
better of their threat, and asked for a parley. It was 
agreed that both sides should withdraw from Colon 
while the Colombians sent an officer to Panama for 
a conference with the imprisoned generals. A special 
train was provided for the emissary. 

The next day, on November 5th, the Dixie arrived 
with 400 additional marines. It became apparent to the 
Colombians that the full power of the United States 
was back of the railroad company's refusal to transport 
them to Panama, and so they agreed to take ship again 
for Colombia. On the 6th, the day following their 
departure, the Atlanta arrived, bringing the number 
of marines up to 1,000. The Navy Department also 
sent ships to the city of Panama on the Pacific side, but 
there was nothing for them to do there. 

Fresh orders from Washington to the marines were 
to the effect that Colombia would not be allowed to 
settle the " revolution " by force. That lone China- 
man had been buried, so that it would have taken a 
microscope to find the revolution. But the orders 

66 



REVOLUTION 

plainly enough showed where the United States stood 
in regard to the secessionary movement, and since 
by force was the only way Colombia could settle the 
revolution, the orders in substance meant that it was 
the United States, and not Panama, that Colombia 
would have to fight to regain sovereignty over her 
richest province. 

The Colombian troops on November 4th might have 
wiped out the American defense in Colon, swept over 
to Panama and crushed the Junta and street mob there, 
and so summarily preserved sovereignty over the ter- 
ritory. And had it done all this, it would have been 
squarely within its rights as a sovereign nation. But 
they knew that such a triumph would be transient. 
They realized it would bring down upon Colombia the 
whole devastating force of the mighty United States, 
which the Spanish-American War so recently had 
shown was something truly to be feared. Hence, their 
withdrawal was prudent, though humiliating. It is 
superfluous, of course, to remark that the United States 
could not have played such a role with any nation 
capable of defending itself. 

Commander Hubbard had no illusions about the 
vital part the United States played in making the revo- 
lution a success. He stated, in the following para- 
graph of his cablegram to the Navy Department on 
November 5th, that the critical time was when the 
marines stood between the Colombian troops and pas- 
sage to the seat of insurrection at Panama. Said he : 

" I am positive that the determined attitude of our 
men, their coolness and evident intention of standing 

67 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

their ground, had a most salutary and decisive effect on 
the immediate situation and was the initial step in the 
ultimate abandoning of Colon by these troops and 
their return to Cartagena the following day." 

On November 6th, two days after the " revolution," 
the United States recognized the independence of the 
Republic of Panama. This was two days before the 
news of the secession reached Bogota, the capital of 
Colombia. There was a popular demonstration against 
the United States in that city, but no attempts against 
American life or property. The faction which had 
favored the treaty recognized that the United States 
had grown tired of diplomatic dilly-dallying. The 
faction antagonistic to the treaty realized that the 
United States had stolen second base in the canal game. 
The Colombian government offered an immediate 
treaty if the United States would permit it to recover 
Panama, but President Roosevelt spurned the over- 
tures. 

Within twelve days after recognizing the indepen- 
dence of the new republic, the United States had se- 
cured a treaty which ceded to it a Canal Zone. P. 
Bunau-Varilla, of the French Canal Company, was 
made the Minister of the de facto Panama government, 
to negotiate this treaty with Secretary Hay. Thus 
the United States was assured of getting all that it 
had been promised by the Junta. The first article of 
the treaty signed on November i8th, at Washington, 
stated that " The United States guarantees and will 
maintain the independence of the Republic of Panama." 
Colombia thereby was notified that Panama, the his- 

68 



REVOLUTION 

toric transit route of the new world, was lost to her 
sovereignty. 

Extreme haste in signing the treaty before there 
was a regular legislative body at Panama had been 
necessary because President Roosevelt wished to get 
the whole affair safely accomplished before our Con- 
gress should open on December 7th. The Republic of 
Panama ratified the treaty on December 2d, but the 
American Senate, miffed a little that the Executive 
should take such important — and to many question- 
able — action without its knowledge or consent, debated 
for several months, then finally ratified the treaty on 
February 23, 1904. The American people have in 
this whole transaction an illuminating example of the 
power a President has to commit the United States 
to a radical policy during a recess of Congress. 

President Roosevelt always had leaned strongly to- 
ward the Panama route for a canal. The setting up 
of a republic there had the effect of complying with 
the Spooner act, which made the selection of the 
Panama route depend upon securing a right of way at 
this point. He made the point to Congress in his mes- 
sage on December 7th, that as the new treaty pro- 
vided this right of way, it became imperative that 
Panama be chosen, and thus the revolution was used 
as a club to force the selection of Panama over Nica- 
ragua. 

The advocates of the Nicaragua route already had 
been urging that as Colombia refused a right of way at 
Panama, the United States was compelled to turn to 
Nicaragua. President Roosevelt did not believe Nica- 

69 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

ragua was the proper place for a canal, and his judg- 
ment on this point, in the light of later years as well 
as from all logical considerations of trade and topog- 
raphy, was eminently sound. His consent for the 
United States to go the length it did in securing the 
Panama route was prompted by his desire to prevent 
the nation from selecting a less advantageous route. 

It has been charged that the President favored Pana- 
ma so that the American financiers, led by Mr. Crom- 
well, who were interested in selling the French prop- 
erty to the government, could get the $40,000,000 the 
sale involved. This charge is not justified either by 
the character of President Roosevelt or by the natural 
advantages of the two routes. It is doubtful if the 
President gave any thought to the owners of the 
French interests, and it is certain that such ownership 
was not a factor in determining him in favor of 
Panama. 

The French interests, of course, had staked all on 
the success of the revolution. Had it failed, Colombia 
would have forfeited their concessions forthwith, and 
Minister Herran had notified them to that effect. It 
is clear that Mr. Cromwell and associates were dead 
certain that the United States never intended that the 
revolution should fail. Their grasp on the situation 
is shown by the naming of M. Bunau-Varilla to nego- 
tiate the treaty with the United States for Panama. 

With $40,000,000 hanging in the balance, the 
French interests were prepared to be generous in 
drawing a treaty. It is to be doubted if a more 
one-sided treaty ever was drawn. Secretary Hay, 

70 



REVOLUTION 

with the willing consent of the Junta, gave the 
United States all the latitude we would have had, if, 
instead of taking a Canal Zone, we had taken the 
whole republic. Panama got all that had been prom- 
ised to Colombia, including a cash payment of $io,- 
000,000, and beginning in 191 3, an annual payment 
of $250,000. The United States is to pay for any 
additional lands in the republic that may be needed 
for the canal and we may use any rivers or lakes in the 
republic necessary to the canal, two provisions broad 
enough to permit the conversion of the whole republic 
to the position of an adjunct to the canal. The cities 
of Colon and Panama were made subject to American 
sanitary measures, and if Panama cannot preserve 
order, the United States, in its discretion, may intro- 
duce troops for that purpose, a right which substan- 
tially robs the republic of sovereignty. The United 
States guarantees the neutrality of the canal but re- 
served the right to fortify it. 

Nobody in the Canal Zone makes any pretense that 
the United States was disinterested in its part in the 
revolution. Most of the canal employees wonder why 
the President did not take the whole republic. Many 
confidently expect the United States to abolish the 
government there sooner or later, because it is clear 
that the republic cannot stand clear of American sup- 
port. On three occasions already the Americans have 
prevented the disruption of the republic. In 1904, 
Gen. Huertas, who had assisted the Junta, became 
dissatisfied with his rewards, and started to overturn 
the administration by force. The marines had to dis- 

71 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

arm his small army. In 1908 the United States had 
to interfere to insure a fair election, and in 1912 this 
writer saw the presidential campaign reach a point 
where the marines and infantry had to be placed at 
the Panama polls to prevent rioting and fraud. It 
was obvious that if the United States had not been 
present in armed force the usual Central American 
method of changing administrations by a revolution 
would have been employed. How long will the United 
States be patient with such conditions ? 

President Roosevelt did not appear in the revolu- 
tion preliminaries because his part later on required 
the " Oh, this is so sudden " tone, in recognizing the 
independence of the new republic. He devoted him- 
self assiduously to proving that the United States had 
done a righteous thing in that act and had closed his 
message with the high profession of friendly zeal to 
the effect that " he would not for one moment discuss 
the possibility of the United States committing an 
•act of such baseness as to abandon the new Republic 
of Panama." But eight years later, in San Francisco, 
he threw off the mask thus assumed and declared: 
" I took Panama and left Congress to debate the mat- 
ter afterward." 

Did President Roosevelt know that his government 
deliberately aided and abetted a province of a sover- 
eign power, with which the United States had a solemn 
treaty, to secede and set up an independent govern- 
ment, so that the United States might get territory it 
otherwise could not obtain? 

72 



REVOLUTION 

Dear reader, you might just as sanely ask a Panaman 
if he thinks it will be wet in the next rainy season ! 

Was there anything, big or little, going on in Theo- 
dore Roosevelt's administration with which he was 
not fairly familiar ? Secretary Hay had given the im- 
pression to the revolutionary Junta that if they would 
go through the trifling act of raising a flag, the United 
States would do the rest. When Secretaries of State 
begin assisting revolutions in foreign countries with- 
out the knowledge and consent of the President, it will 
be under a far less dominating Executive than Theo- 
dore Roosevelt! 

With the ratification of the treaty, the decks at last 
were cleared for the long-dreamed-of project of build- 
ing a canal. The people of the United States frankly 
were glad that such progress had been made, but they 
were inclined to believe that it would not be well to 
nose too deep into the method of acquiring the terri- 
tory. They knew that the payment of $10,000,000 for 
the Canal Zone paid somebody for the right of way, 
though whether the rightful owner was a question the 
administration was very glad to let remain dormant. 
The Saturday Evening Post, speaking editorially in 
the spring of 19 12, doubtless expressed the attitude 
of many Americans when it said : 

" It seems to be the part of statesmanship in 
this dilemma to talk loudly about the benefits 
we confer upon the world's commerce by dig- 
ging the canal and to regard our acquisition of 
the canal a closed incident." 

73 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Yet, the American people never have solved any is- 
sue in which a moral question was involved, by thus 
seeking to obscure it. The true facts about the acquisi- 
tion of the Canal Zone only came out by dribs, but 
events seem to conspire to bring the whole transaction 
to light. On June 26, 1912, Mr. J. Gabriel Duque, 
who had been a leader in the revolution, got into a 
controversy with Mr. Ricardo Arias, also a member 
of the 1903 Junta, and over his own signature in his 
paper, The Star and Herald, published at Panama, 
made the following admission : 

" Mr. Arias should know that I have friends 
in Washington, seeing that as far back as 1903 
when we worked together for Panama's inde- 
pendence, we were in confidential treatment 
with Secretary Hay." 

Mr. Tracy Robinson, author of a book on Panama, 
was another leading figure in the revolution. He de- 
clines to give the history of the affair, although so com- 
petent to reveal its inward processes, but tells his 
readers that " The details would afford material for 
a wonder story." 

Since President Roosevelt has candidly confessed 
that he " took " Panama, there is no reason why the 
main actors in the play should not speak out and the 
immediate future is going to see the disclosure of 
much illuminating material about this " wonder story." 
The American people have had a vague idea of what 
did happen at Panama, but there is no longer any ex- 
cuse for a pretense of virtuous conduct on the part of 

74 



REVOLUTION 

the United States, except on the point of giving the 
world something essential to its convenience. It is 
hypocritical to profess that we made adequate com- 
pensation when we paid Panama for the Canal Zone. 
We must applaud President Roosevelt for taking the 
Canal Zone, but the failure to make reparation to 
Colombia is a conspicuous piece of self-deception and 
moral obliquity. We raised the Maine, however, and 
we will yet make amends to Colombia. 



75 



CHAPTER IX 

THE GEOGRAPHY OF PANAMA 

NATURE quietly, but imperatively, asked the en- 
gineers who favored a sea-level canal at Pan- 
ama : Why will you insist upon the prodigious disar- 
rangement of natural advantages that lie here awaiting 
the utilization of a lock type? 

The geography of the Isthmus is adapted peculiarly 
to the lock type of canal. Aside from the obstacle 
to a sea-level canal that existed in the continental 
divide, the Chagres River followed a course which, 
at the same time, would have been a baffling problem 
in a sea-level plan, but the most beneficent arrange- 
ment for a lock-type canal. 

The territory comprised in the scope of this book 
is the same as that within the boundaries of the Re- 
public of Panama. In area, it is about 32,000 square 
miles, slightly smaller than the State of Indiana. On 
the Atlantic side it is 379 miles long, and on the Pa- 
cific side, 674 miles by the coast line. The popula- 
tion, native and foreign, is around 400,000 to-day, 
though considerably less in the days of exploration 
and conquest. 

Our treaty with the Republic of Panama ceded us 
a strip of territory ten miles wide, from deep water 
in the Atlantic to deep water in the Pacific. This 
territory, officially designated the Canal Zone, is de- 

76 



GEOGRAPHY 

termined by a line drawn five miles from each side of 
the center line of the route of the canal. Thus, the 
Canal Zone is not bounded by straight lines from 
ocean to ocean, but curves as the channel of the canal 
curves. The area of the Canal Zone is 448 square 
miles, of which 73 square miles are privately owned, 
but may be bought in the discretion of the United 
States. While within the limits of the Canal Zone, 
the cities of Panama and Colon, at the terminals, re- 
main under the sovereignty of the Republic of Pan- 
ama. 

Some confusion is caused by the fact that the Isth- 
mus of Panama runs nearly East and West, instead 
of North and South, as might be imagined, at the 
point where the canal traverses it. Panama city is 
almost due south of Buffalo, and is southeast of Colon, 
the Atlantic terminal. The canal route, therefore, 
runs in a southeastern direction from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific, and, to the astonishment of the tourist, 
the sun rises in the Pacific and sets in the Atlantic. 

We are not building our canal at the narrowest 
point on the Isthmus. This point is found at the 
Gulf of San Bias, 60 miles east of Colon, where the 
Isthmus is only 30 miles wide, whereas, at Panama, 
it is 47 miles wide. Because the mountain barrier at 
San Bias has an elevation of 700 feet above sea-level, 
no serious thought of a canal there ever was enter- 
tained long. The absence of rivers makes the sea- 
level type the only kind of canal that could have been 
attempted at San Bias, involving a staggering task 
of excavation. Besides, it was in the complete grasp 

71 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

of the jungle, while at Panama there was a beaten 
path, from ocean to ocean, four centuries old. 

The Chagres River (pronounced Shag-gress) 
originates in the San Bias Mountains, and drains a 
basin of 1,320 square miles. After running parallel 
with the coast line, nearly midway between the oceans, 
it turns sharply at right angles and empties into the 
Caribbean Sea, a few miles west of Colon. The 
point where the Chagres makes this turn is within 
the Canal Zone, and about 30 miles from the Carib- 
bean, running through the Canal Zone for that dis- 
tance. From the Caribbean Sea to Bohio, about sev- 
enteen miles, the bed of the river is only slightly above 
sea-level, and from Bohio to about the entrance of 
the Culebra cut, it rises to 48 feet above sea-level. 

Engineers were divided on the utility of this natural 
geographical situation. Those who favored the lock- 
type canal believed that the Chagres River could be 
dammed up so as to form the longest part of the canal, 
and thus save a vast amount of excavation that would 
be required in a sea-level type. While not denying 
the saving in excavation in a lock type, the engineers 
who favored a sea-level canal believed that the fixed 
limitations of the lock type made it inadvisable, when 
the expansion in the size of ships was considered. 
Their plan was to divert the Chagres and tributary 
rivers, of which there are 26 in the Canal Zone, by 
digging new channels for them, and so get them out 
of the way of the canal. 

The French, in 1880, had started out on that the- 
ory. They thought of digging a great tunnel through 

78 



GEOGRAPHY 

the mountains to divert the Chagres River into the 
Pacific Ocean. This tunnel would have been lo miles 
long and, needless to say, a rather visionary under- 
taking. Five years after they began operations they 
abandoned the sea-level plan and adopted the lock-type 
canal. But their dam across the Chagres River was 
to be at Bohio, seventeen miles inland from the Carib- 
bean, while the American engineers advised a dam at 
Gatun, only seven miles inland. 

At Gatun, the natural formation of the mountains 
permitted the Chagres River to escape into the Carib- 
bean Sea through a gap less than two miles wide. The 
lock-type advocates said this gap could be filled in 
and so create a basin to be filled by the stagnated water 
of the Chagres River. The idea was to build a dam 
high enough to back the accumulated river water 
toward the Pacific for a distance of 32 miles, and at 
an average depth, in the canal channel, of 45 feet 
throughout. Another dam would prevent the lake so 
formed from spilling down the Pacific slope. Thus, 
all but 15 miles of the canal would be made by an 
inland, artificial lake, 164 square miles in extent. 

But even in a lock type there would have to be an 
impressive amount of excavation. Not only would 
the sea-level channels approaching this lake on either 
side of the Isthmus have to be dredged, but the moun- 
tain barrier, running lengthwise with the Isthmus, 
would have to be pierced with a channel so as to per- 
mit the waters of the Gatun lake to reach the point 
on the Pacific side where the locks would afford the 
descent to the ocean. As the surface of the lake was 

79 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

proposed to be 85 feet above sea-level, the bottom 
of the channel through the mountains would have to 
be 45 feet lower than the surface elevation, or at 40 
feet above sea-level. 

The area to be excavated in this lake channel, 32 
miles long, was from Gatun to Obispo, following the 
Chagres River in general, and requiring only about 
12,000,000 cubic yards to be removed, in 23 miles. 
Then the mountains began, 45 feet above sea-level, 
and reached their highest point, in the center line of 
the canal, at Gold Hill, 312 feet above sea-level, thence 
sloping toward the Pacific, to the proposed lock site 
at Pedro Miguel, a distance of 9 miles. The average 
depth of the cut would be 120 feet throughout the 9 
miles, and the deepest point of excavation at Gold 
Hill would require going down 2'j2 feet. 

The Culebra cut, as this channel through the moun- 
tains was called, was to be 200 feet wide. In 1880, 
the French had begun work there, and they removed 
18,646,000 cubic yards that were useful to the Amer- 
icans. Their machinery was used the first year of our 
occupation. 

At Gatun, on the Atlantic side of the proposed 
lake, there would be locks to lift ships to the lake, 
and at Pedro Miguel and La Boca, on the Pacific side 
the locks would lower the ships to sea-level again. 
The Cocoli and other rivers could be used to form a 
second small lake between the Pedro Miguel and La 
Boca locks. The total excavation for the sea-level 
channels and the Culebra cut was estimated around 
100,000,000 cubic yards. 

80 



GEOGRAPHY 

Opposed to these considerations in favor of a lock 
type were the arguments advanced in behalf of a sea- 
level canal. The popular mind could see ships steam- 
ing or sailing uninterruptedly from ocean to ocean 
through a dugout channel that would not grow too 
small for the largest ships that time might develop, 
and the engineers who advised such a canal asserted 
that the difference in time and cost of building the 
two types was not materially in favor of the lock type. 
Time has developed that such a belief was widely 
erroneous. 

The Americans came to the Canal Zone in 1904 
with the question of the kind of canal to be built un- 
settled. They were to be there more than two years 
before the violently discussed issue was to be settled. 
It was like starting in to build a house without any 
definite plan in mind. Meanwhile, however, it was 
recognized that there was a vast amount of pioneer 
and preparatory work to be accomplished that would 
absorb the activities of the organization pending the 
solution of this problem. 

What kind of a country, as to temperature, rain- 
fall, vegetable and animal life, and healthfulness, had 
we secured ? As to the first characteristic, Panama is 
only 9 degrees from the Equator. But it is far from 
being as hot as that proximity might suggest. 
Throughout the year the temperature averages about 
85 degrees. The highest recorded temperature in the 
Canal Zone is only 97 degrees. At night the atmos- 
phere falls sharply until, usually, light covering is 
required on beds, and the hot, sweltering nights of 

81 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

American cities in the summer are unknown. Palm 
Beach, Florida, in the winter, is not a more desirable 
resort than Panama. 

The northern mind, too, considerably has overesti- 
mated the effects of the rainy season at Panama. 
During January, February, March, and April there 
is practically no rainfall. By the ist of May light 
showers occur daily, or every few days, and through 
June, with an occasional gusher. From then, on to 
December, the rains become more frequent and heav- 
ier, and have a way of coming up about the same 
time every day, sometimes in the afternoons, some- 
times in the mornings. Between showers the sun is 
radiant. Construction operations have to be sus- 
pended during the violent downpours, and the canal 
employees call any rain that occurs in the noon hours, 
or after work, " a government rain." 

On the Atlantic side the rainfall averages between 
130 and 140 inches annually; on the Pacific side from 
60 to 70 inches. At times it rains so furiously that 
it appears to be one continuous sheet of water fall- 
ing. For one hour the record fall is 5.86 inches; for 
one day, at Porto Bello, 10.06 inches; in three min- 
utes 2.46 inches fell at the same place; and at Pan- 
ama on May 12, 191 2, 6 inches fell in two hours. 
The years 1906 and 1909 were the wettest since the 
American occupation and 19 12 the dry est. 

This heavy precipitation makes the rivers of Pan- 
ama torrential streams. The Chagres River has risen 
25 feet in twenty-four hours. During every rainy 
season the records left by the French and kept by the 

82 



GEOGRAPHY 

Americans since their occupation show that this river 
discharges enough water to fill the proposed Gatun 
Lake one and a half times. It is not expected that any 
lack of water for the lock-type canal ever will be ex- 
perienced. 

Except for the beaten paths and cleared spaces con- 
stantly maintained the jungle is king in Panama. One 
season's growth will cover an abandoned clearing with 
the luxuriant tropical vegetation. When the Amer- 
icans entered the Canal Zone, most of the French 
machinery and even whole towns were covered by the 
jungle. 

There are the usual tropical fruits, bananas, cocoa- 
nuts, alligator pears, papayas, mangoes, and other less 
well-known varieties. The vegetation includes the 
royal poinciana, palm, and other stately trees. The 
rare orchid is at home on the Isthmus, about seventy- 
five varieties being found, a dozen of which are of 
the most beautiful kinds. A dry season of four 
months does not parch the growth, but the rainy sea- 
son gives it the most brilliant green coloring. 

None of the big animal life of Africa is found any- 
where in South America, and Panama has even less 
dangerous species than the mainland. The tarantula, 
coral snake, tiger cats, deer, and other larger, though 
not so dangerous, animals are found, and alligators 
abound in the rivers and bays, as well as sharks. The 
insect life is wonderfully varied, the birds are in in- 
finite variety and most beautiful, while wild flowers 
of dazzling colors are in profusion. The Canal Zone, 

83 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

where occupied in the canal operations, long since was 
freed of dangerous animal life. 

Distinct, but inconsequential, earthquake shocks 
have been felt in Panama for centuries. The San 
Francisco earthquake, in 1906, was not recorded on 
the Canal Zone seismograph. In the seventeenth cen- 
tury a violent shock occurred, but none in the eight- 
eenth and nineteenth centuries, nor has any been re- 
corded in the twentieth century, although in Costa 
Rica, the republic adjoining Panama, a severe shock, 
in 1910, caused considerable loss of life and property. 
So far as past performance can indicate, the canal 
should not suffer from earthquakes. 

The Atlantic and Pacific oceans are on the same 
level, but the tide on the Pacific side has a maximum 
lift of 21 feet, while on the Atlantic side the maxi- 
mum lift is only 2^ feet. Allowance for this varia- 
tion was made by providing a deeper channel for the 
canal on the Pacific side, so that the passage of ships 
will not be affected by the tides. The shape of the 
Bay of Panama causes the high tide on the Pacific 
side. 

As there is not a favorable geographical arrange- 
ment at either end of the canal, in the way of har- 
bors, the defects have been supplied by breakwaters. 
At the Atlantic entrance a breakwater more than two 
miles long runs from Toro Point to shield ships lying 
in the entrance from the violent Northers that occa- 
sionally sweep the coast. Another breakwater a half 
mile long, running out from the Colon waterfront, 
will protect shipping in that harbor from storms on 

84 



GEOGRAPHY 

the east. At the Pacific entrance storms are not dan- 
gerous, but the currents deposited silt in the channel 
in such quantities as to make a breakwater advisable, 
and this one runs from the mainland to Naos Island, 
three miles out in the bay, and connects with the forti- 
fications. It was built from material excavated in the 
Culebra cut, whereas the Atlantic breakwaters were 
built largely of rock quarried at Porto Bello. 

Panama and Colon are cities of great interest to 
the tourist. The former has about 50,000 population 
and the latter 20,000. Panama is the capital of the 
republic, has a handsome national theater and insti- 
tute, a street car system is in course of construction, 
and a number of old cathedrals are interesting sights. 
The canal employees travel for half fare on the rail- 
road and are often in evidence in the quaint little 
victoria carriages that handle the street traffic, at ten 
cents a ride, in the two cities. 

Mardi Gras comes in February in the city of Pan- 
ama, and is a vivid exhibition of the Spanish tem- 
perament at play. For four days the natives abandon 
themselves to the festivities and business reaches a 
standstill. A queen is elected by popular vote and re- 
ceives the homage of all the Panaman officials, as well 
as the higher American dignitaries. The parade of 
floats and carriages is a dazzling presentation of the 
Spanish fancy expressed in dress and decorations. 



8s 



CHAPTER X 

GETTING UNDER WAY 

^^ TTTHAT this nation will insist upon is that 
V V results be achieved," wrote President 
Roosevelt in his order creating the first Isthmian 
Canal Commission that he appointed, on March 8, 
1904; and that remained the keynote of his attitude 
toward the canal. The country was thoroughly con- 
vinced of the inefficiency of any government-built en- 
terprise, • so, after complying with the Spooner act in 
naming a representative from the navy and the army, 
on the Commission, he announced its full personnel as 
follows : 

Admiral John G. Walker, U. S. N., Chairman, 

Maj.-Gen. George W. Davis, U. S. A., 

William Barclay Parsons, 

William H. Burr, 

Benjamin M. Harrod, 

Carl Ewald Grunsky, 

Frank J. Hecker. 

This Commission held its first meeting in Washing- 
ton on March 22d, when preparations were made for 
a visit to the Isthmus, which they reached on April 
5th. After three weeks of investigations they decided 
that such engineering records as the French left must 
be supplemented by fresh explorations and surveys; 

86 



UNDER WAY 

that the sanitation of the Canal Zone, and the cities 
of Colon and Panama, was of the first importance; 
and that a period of preparation generally must pre- 
cede effective construction operations. Surgeon-Col. 
W. C. Gorgas accompanied the Commission on this 
trip and made the preliminary plans for cleaning up 
the Isthmus which, when worked out, were to make 
him famous. The Commission returned to the United 
States on April 29th. 

At a meeting between representatives of the United 
States and the French Canal Company, in Paris, on 
April 1 6th, the sale of the company's property, for 
$40,000,000 was signed, and was ratified by the share- 
holders in the company on April 23d. This ended the 
labors of Mr. William Nelson Cromwell, except that 
he tried, unsuccessfully, to get an additional payment 
for the work done on the canal, from the time the 
$40,000,000 was agreed upon as a price, in 1902, until 
the Americans formally took over the property, in 
1904. 

President Roosevelt was subjected to wide criticism 
for this deal, but of all his actions in connection with 
the canal it was one of the wisest. Without regard 
to who got the money it indisputably is true, to any- 
one who has visited the canal, that the United States 
got a dollar in value for every dollar it paid the 
French company. As late as 191 1 Col. Goethals ap- 
pointed a committee headed by J. B. Bishop, secretary 
of the Commission, to invoice the French purchase, 
and they reported the value of French excavation 
useful to the American plan of canal, the mechanical 

87 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

equipment, buildings, and engineering records, to be 
$42,799,826, or nearly $3,000,000 more than was paid. 
At the same time it was a good sale for the French 
company because the United States was the only 
prospective buyer. 

The item of largest value to the United States, as 
estimated in the report, was the excavation of 29,908,- 
000 cubic yards, valued at $25,389,240. This mainly 
was in the Culebra cut. Next in importance was the 
Panama Railroad and subsidiary trackage in the Canal 
Zone, and the remainder was for quarters, hospitals, 
storehouses, machine shops, canal equipment, item- 
ized in part as follows: 

Three 2,000-ton steamers of the Panama Railroad 
Steamship Line; 30,000 acres of land comprising 
practically all the real estate in the city of Colon and 
a valuable part of the city of Panama; 625,000 acres 
of land with the canal concession; 2,265 buildings of 
all descriptions; 212 Belgian locomotives; 34 Ameri- 
can locomotives; barges, yawls, launches, dredges, 
cranes, drills, dump cars, and vast quantities of steel 
rails, machinery parts, pumps, steam winches, and 
other equipment in profusion. 

Much of the mechanical equipment and whole vil- 
lages of houses used by the French employees were 
covered with a dense growth of jungle after years of 
idleness, but the machinery had been oiled and painted 
carefully before abandonment, and so was preserved 
in good condition when the Americans came. Had 
not the French buildings been available and capable 
of being speedily repaired for use, the early Ameri- 

88 



UNDER WAY 

can employees would have suffered more hardships 
than they did. Of these buildings, the Americans re- 
paired and used 1,536, their value being estimated 
at $1,879,203.80. 

Construction work was carried on the first year 
of American occupation largely with old French equip- 
ment. The closing days of the canal find a consid- 
erable amount of it still in use. A great deal of light 
work by locomotives was done by the Belgian engines 
that the heavy American types could not handle eco- 
nomically. That part of the equipment which could 
not be utilized was used as ballast on the Panama 
Steamship liners to the extent of 27,000 tons, and 
sold as scrap on the New York market, and in 191 1 
the Chicago House Wrecking Company bid in the 
remainder for the lump sum of $215,000. 

In the sale, the United States received 68,888 shares 
of the capital stock of the Panama Railroad Company, 
and later bought from individuals 1,112 shares for 
$157,118.24, giving the government complete control; 
and while the railroad has been operated separately 
from the Commission, it has been officered by mem- 
bers of the Commission or its employees, and in all 
points made subordinate to canal construction. 

The value of the French engineering records and 
surveys, and especially of the records kept of the flow 
of the Chagres River, is incalculable because they 
could not be duplicated. It was on French records that 
the estimate of the amount of water to expect from 
the Isthmian rivers for use in the Gatun Lake was 
based. 

89 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Congress, on April 28, 1904, appropriated the 
$10,000,000 which had been promised in the treaty 
to the Republic of Panama for the Canal Zone. This, 
with the consummation of the sale by the French 
company, cleared the title to the Canal Zone, and at 
7.30 o'clock in the morning of May 4th, Lieut. Mark 
Brooke, of the United States Army, formally took 
over the property and the territory in the name of his 
government. 

The day following. President Roosevelt announced 
the appointment of John F. Wallace, general manager 
of the Illinois Central Railroad, as Chief Engineer of 
the Panama Canal, effective on June ist. He had 
acknowledged the national disbelief in governmental 
efficiency by going into private industrial life for a 
canal builder. Mr. Wallace's salary was to be $25,- 
000 annually, and the country recognized the selection 
as a good one. 

Upon their return to the United States, the Com- 
mission began organizing surveying and engineering 
parties for pioneer work in the Canal Zone. The first 
ship to arrive with such a party was on May 1 7th, the 
party having at its head Ma j. -Gen. Davis, of the Com- 
mission, and including Col. W. C. Gorgas, chief sani- 
tary officer, and George R. Shanton, who personally 
was selected by President Roosevelt to head the police 
of the Canal Zone. 

Ma j. -Gen. Davis was in charge pending the arrival 
of Mr. Wallace, who reached Colon on June 24th. 
The President designated Maj.-Gen. Davis as Gover- 
nor of the Canal Zone, on June 8th, and for the first 

90 



UNDER WAY 

two months he had his residence on Culebra Hill, then 
in Panama. Operations were continued just as the 
French left them, until Mr. Wallace's arrival definitely 
marked the beginning of real construction. 



91 



CHAPTER XI 

THE CANAL UNDER WALLACE 

ANXIETY to dig dirt, the usual American desire 
to get things done right off, was the dominat- 
ing idea in 1904. So, while Mr. Wallace kept up the 
surveying which would aid in determining the center 
line of the canal, as well as the choice of a type, he 
also pushed excavation operations in the Culebra cut, 
rehabilitating old French excavators and increasing the 
working force. 

He had found 746 men at work with hand tools in 
the Culebra cut. His first inspection convinced him 
that the French machinery should be abandoned as fast 
as modern American equipment could be secured, and 
he expressed the opinion that two years would be re- 
quired for preparations. At that time the main track 
and sidings of the Panama Railroad totaled 78.82 
miles, while the trackage left by the French in the 
cut and elsewhere was 176.2 miles. The immediate 
substitution of heavy American rails for the Belgian 
type, and the double-tracking of the main line, were 
among Mr. Wallace's first decisions. Rolling stock 
and locomotives were ancient in design, and in a bad 
state of repair, but he rescued from the jungle and 
overhauled 58 locomotives and 980 dump cars. 

It required stout hearts not to quail before the Isth- 
mus of 1904. Not only the traditional unhealth fulness, 

92 




CUnedinst photo, Washington, D. C. 

John F. Wallace. 



WALLACE 

but the wretched condition of the railroad, after fifty 
years of noncompetition, the long distance from the 
base of supplies, the miserable living accommodations 
in Colon and Panama, where there were no sewers, no 
water and unpaved streets, into which was thrown all 
refuse and garbage; and the vexatious red tape that 
surrounded all government enterprises, made a situa- 
tion that weaklings no sooner touched than they re- 
turned precipitately to the United States. 

But, however staggering the obstacles were, the 
American people had set themselves the task of suc- 
ceeding where the French had failed, to do it at any 
cost and in spite of all opposition, be that opposition 
in the form of disease, red tape, hardship or any other 
limitation. 

To take care of the increasing number of workers, 
that every ship was bringing to the Canal Zone, was 
the most pressing problem. The interest of the whole 
world had been stimulated by the rejuvenation of the 
canal project by the Americans, with the result that 
restless spirits everywhere began bending their steps 
toward Panama. Men of excellent character in the 
United States also came, attracted by the pay and the 
romantic nature of the undertaking. 

The houses left by the French were inhabited by 
natives or buried in the jungle growth. They neces- 
sarily were run down but could be made habitable once 
the carpenters and lumber to do the work were at hand. 
These, however, like everything else, were two thou- 
sand miles away with a spider web of red tape over 
them that paralyzed speedy movement. In his year 

93 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

of service Mr. Wallace repaired 357 of these houses 
and built forty-eight new ones, still leaving the problem 
of housing employees unsolved. During that time 
more than 9,000 workers came to the Canal Zone, but 
the migration back to the United States, or adjacent 
islands and countries, was heavy. 

Col. Gorgas had urged the prompt sanitation of 
Colon and Panama, and early in the American occupa- 
tion the construction of sewers, waterworks, and paved 
streets was begun. The Americans advanced the 
money for these improvements on a plan of taxes that 
at the end of fifty years from their completion will re- 
pay the United States and turn them over to the re- 
spective cities. 

One of the dredges left by the Slaven brothers was 
found to be, after twenty years, in excellent condition 
and was put to work in Colon harbor. The twenty 
miles of track in the Culebra cut occasioned derail- 
ments and wrecks with exasperating frequency until 
relaid with heavier rails, and this mileage was in- 
creased by an addition of fifteen miles during the first 
year. Machine shops existed at Colon, Matachin, and 
Gorgona where, when the jungle had been cut away, 
facilities were found for repairing machinery and roll- 
ing stock. 

Mr. Wallace made his headquarters in Panama in a 
building that formerly had been occupied by the 
French Director-General. It is now the American 
Legation. The disbursing officer, sanitary officer, en- 
gineering parties, and clerical forces were centered in 
Panama, but a site for an American administrative 

94 



WALLACE 

town was selected at the foot of Ancon hill just out- 
side of Panama. 

French towns at Culebra, Empire, and Gorgona were 
rehabilitated and systems of sewers and waterworks 
begun. There were settlements at Matachin, Bas 
Obispo, and Colon. Accommodations were of the 
crudest description. Powder boxes served for Morris 
chairs, furniture was scanty and of ancient design, 
tropical insects made life a misery, servants were worse 
than indifferent, there were no baths, no running water 
in the houses, and that which was used sometimes was 
caught from roofs on which the buzzards roosted, the 
native foods had to be eaten, and ice was a luxury that 
only occasionally could be obtained from the railroad 
ice factory at Colon. 

Each ship that brought workers to the Canal Zone 
invariably carried the same or others back. Yet a per- 
centage stuck and accepted the undesirable conditions 
gracefully. A few had vision enough to see that our 
great government would rectify everything if only 
given time. Others realized that the canal never would 
be built if the workers expected soft conditions right at 
the start and they accepted their sacrifices of comfort 
as a national necessity. 

To add to the difficulties of the early days, maga- 
zine, newspaper, and other critics exploited the im- 
perfections of the employee's environment from a 
hypercritical standpoint, whereas the government was 
bending its energies to the utmost to bring conditions 
to par. Many of these critics were inspired by a 
preference for the Nicaraguan route, others simply 

95 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

were anti-Roosevelt and lambasted anything he cham- 
pioned, while still others were the hirelings of spe- 
cial interests that opposed any canal. These critics 
reached the climax of absurdity when complaint was 
made that men living only nine degrees from the Equa- 
tor ought to have hot water baths. There was no let- 
up until the canal was so far advanced that it stood as 
a self-evident refutation of their dismal prophecies. 

Every defect they pointed out had been noted long 
ago by the officials and was remedied in time more 
handsomely than any private contractor would have 
matched. The Americans were not attempting a pink 
tea performance in Panama and the torrents of abuse 
that were heaped upon the administration constitute 
the most disgraceful feature of the entire project. 

Mr. Wallace came from a highly organized railroad 
system to an absolutely unorganized enterprise two 
thousand miles from the base of supplies. Govern- 
ment red tape to such a man was exasperating to the 
last degree. It was necessary for the government to 
advertise for bids, and this constituted the principal 
delay in securing orders, but barring that procedure, it 
has not been shown that a private contractor could 
have placed machinery and supplies on the ground 
with much greater celerity than the government. 

The over-riding idea was to make a showing. Presi- 
dent Roosevelt himself had set the pace for quick re- 
sults. Congressmen who were expected to vote for 
canal appropriations frequently could not be impressed 
that the project was worth while if the dirt was not 
flying. Mr. Wallace therefore concentrated energies 

96 



WALLACE 

on excavation work that more profitably could have 
been spent on preparations. He got out 741,644 yards 
in his year, a creditable showing with the equipment 
at hand. The first steam shovel was installed on No- 
vember II, 1904, and was No. loi, of the 70-ton 
class. It is still in use in the canal. On December 2, 
1904, the second steam shovel was erected, No. 201, of 
the 95-ton class. By June, 1905, there were nine steam 
shovels at work, and the last French excavator was 
abandoned on June 16, 1905, the day Mr. Wallace left 
the Canal Zone as Chief Engineer. 

All engines, cars, steam shovels, and other large 
equipment had to be brought to the Isthmus " knocked 
down." The cost of putting together a locomotive of 
the large type was $820 and for erecting a steam 
shovel of the 95-ton class, the cost in the Canal Zone 
shops, is $770. This work, with the repair work and 
original steel and iron construction work, required 
boilermakers, mechanics, blacksmiths, and machine 
shop workers of all kinds. Recruiting offices were 
opened in the principal American cities to engage them 
and sometimes conditions in the Canal Zone were pic- 
tured a little rosier than the facts warranted. 

As Secretary of War, William Howard Taft had the 
immediate direction of Panama canal affairs. Every 
time he touched the project he manifested the high 
order of ability that made him so admirably equipped 
for the presidency later on, although the average canal 
employee will not agree with this opinion, because the 
Secretary actually acted as if the Republic of Panama 
was a sovereign power, entitled to consideration and 

97 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

concessions in its complaints against the Commission. 
The canal employees were coddled by President Roose- 
velt and, besides, have no surplus of brotherly feeling 
at all for the Panamans, so that Secretary Taft's con- 
siderate treatment of them to many appeared a par- 
tiality at the expense of the canal employees. 

Almost coincidental with the beginning of American 
operations, Panama began to feel how absolutely sover- 
eign it had made the Americans right in the heart of 
the republic. The Canal Zone was being managed 
with complete independence from the republic, as much 
so as the Republic of Costa Rica to the north. 

Gov. Davis had corresponded at length with the of- 
ficials of Panama, over the question of sovereignty, 
the jurisdiction of the courts, the issues of the tariff, 
postage, customs, and currency, until it was deemed 
advisable for Secretary Taft in person to visit the 
Isthmus to arrange a working agreement on these dif- 
ferences. 

Secretary Taft arrived on November 2y, 1904, and 
remained until December 7th. He was assisted, in the 
conferences that were held in Panama, by William 
Nelson Cromwell, whose intimate knowledge of all 
Panama affairs made him a valuable adviser. On the 
question of sovereignty, which seemed to be especially 
delicate to the Republic, the treaty was peculiar in that 
it did not cede the Canal Zone finally to the United 
States, but gave the Americans all the powers they 
would exercise " if they were sovereign." 

Panama contended that final sovereignty was vested 
in it, and Secretary Taft, being after the substance 

98 



WALLACE 

rather than the form, did not quibble over this dis- 
tinction without a difference, but later expressed the 
opinion that Panama sovereignty over the Canal Zone 
was a "barren ideality." Certainly it has proved so 
to be. The issue passed off in talk. 

An agreement was reached on the currency ques- 
tion whereby the United States would accept the money 
of Panama atone half the value of American currency, 
that is, the peso, worth intrinsically only forty cents, 
would be exchanged with United States money at fifty 
cents, although it was in size and face value the same 
as our dollar. The same system was in vogue in the 
Philippines. To meet the needs of the canal pay- 
master, the circulation of pesos was increased from 
3,000,000 to 4,000,000. Out of this grew the custom 
in the Canal Zone of referring to United States cur- 
rency as *' gold " and to Panama currency as " silver," 
and in the stores articles are priced in both currencies. 
The physical advantage of a high-value currency is 
demonstrated on the Isthmus, because the weight and 
size of the Panama silver money makes it cumbersome. 

Stamps were selling in the Canal Zone for slightly 
less than in the post offices of the republic, with the 
result that the republic was losing revenue. Secretary 
Taft settled this just complaint by arranging for the 
Canal Zone to buy its stamps from the republic for 
sixty per centum of their value, the forty per centum 
remaining to be the profit of the Canal Zone offices. 
The stamps are surcharged " Canal Zone," which is 
the official geographical designation of the territory 
through which the canal runs. 

99 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

On June 24, 1904, President Roosevelt had made 
the Dingley tariff applicable to the Canal Zone. This 
worked badly and Secretary Taft agreed to have the 
order revoked, so that the Canal Zone ever since has 
enjoyed the freest of free trade. All other issues were 
cleared up without the United States yielding any free- 
dom of action as to importing materials, executing 
justice, operating ship terminals and supplying canal 
employees with the necessaries of life through com- 
missaries and hotels. 

While Secretary Taft and Chief Engineer Wallace 
were working in their spheres, Gov. Davis was in- 
stituting the various departments of civil government 
which to-day are noted with admiration by the tourist. 
Chief of Police Shanton was engaged in ridding the 
Canal Zone of its bad men and bringing a population 
long without any restraint under the control of regula- 
tions that the Americans considered essential to orderly 
existence. So far as practicable, the laws to which 
the natives were accustomed, which had been handed 
down the centuries by the Spaniards, were adopted 
in taxing lands and other property, but the court 
procedure was American with the exception of the 
jury system. The judges acted as juries. 

From the first Mr. Wallace had kept close tab on 
the cost of excavating dirt in the Culebra cut. The 
type to be chosen being still an unknown factor, he 
was in some measure working in the dark, except that 
the material removed would be useful for any type, 
provided the dumps were selected so as not to later 
get in the way of any route chosen. In 191 2, the 

100 




Copyright hy Harris d Eicing. 

President Taft. 



WALLACE 

Americans had to remove a French dump near Cu- 
lebra to prevent its sHpping down into the cut. He 
finally announced a unit cost of 50 cents a cubic yard 
for either a sea-level or lock-type canal. 

Messrs. Parsons and Burr, the engineering com- 
mittee of the Commission, after a personal inspection 
of the Canal Zone, and taking Mr. Wallace's esti- 
mate, recommended a sea-level type of canal. It was 
to cost, exclusive of improvements in Colon and Pan- 
ama, and civil government in the Canal Zone, $230,- 
500,000. Mr. Wallace had caused surveys to be made 
for a lock type of canal, and he estimated the cost of 
such a canal, with a summit level of 60 feet eleva- 
tion, to be $178,013,406; with a summit level at 30 
feet elevation, the cost would be $194,213,406. 

All three estimates missed the real cost of the re- 
spective types widely. Mr. Wallace's estimate of 50 
cents a yard for excavation was far too low. As a 
matter of record, the cost reached 82 cents under 
Chief Engineer Stevens, rose to 91 cents under Chief 
Engineer Goethals, and only once fell below the 50- 
cent estimate, in March, 191 1, when it fell to 47 cents 
a yard. The average for the period from 1904 to 
191 1 was 88 cents. The mistake was made because 
solid rock underlay the surface, necessitating contin- 
uous blasting before it could be handled by the steam 
shovels, while the working day, which had been ten 
hours under Mr. Wallace, was cut to eight hours 
under Messrs. Stevens and Goethals, and wages rose 
sharply as well. 

Persistent and vigorous complaints from Mr. Wal- 

lOI 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

lace, about the hindrances of governmental methods 
of doing business, found a receptive ear in President 
Roosevelt. The Executive was just as eager to make 
the dirt fly as Mr. Wallace, and readily agreed that 
a Commission of seven members was an awkward 
and ill-working management for the peculiar condi- 
tions of the job at Panama. Accordingly drastic ac- 
tion was decreed. 

Secretary Taft, on March 29, 1905, asked the en- 
tire Commission to resign. His explanation exoner- 
ated the members of any blameworthy administration, 
but indicated that the Commission had been found an 
unwieldy body. Mr. Wallace was in Washington, 
and the President and Secretary Taft followed his 
suggestions almost to the letter, including the one that 
the Chief Engineer be made a member of the Com- 
mission. 

On April i, 1905, the second Isthmian Canal Com- 
mission to be appointed by President Roosevelt was 
announced. Heading it was a new figure in canal 
affairs, Theodore P. Shonts, who played a decisive 
part in the enterprise for the ensuing two years. The 
personnel of the new Commission was : 

Theodore P. Shonts, Chairman, 

Charles E. Magoon, Governor of the Canal Zone, 

John F. Wallace, Chief Engineer, 

MORDECAI T. EnDICOTT, 

Peter C. Hains, 

Oswald H. Ernst, 

Benjamin M„ Harrod. , 

102 



WALLACE 

There was the same number of Commissioners, but 
the first three were named an Executive Committee 
which virtually should exercise the powers of the en- 
tire body. Thus power was taken from seven and 
concentrated in three members. Mr. Shonts was to 
be in charge of the Washington office and Messrs. 
Wallace and Magoon on the Isthmus. 

Again following Mr. Wallace's suggestion, the 
directory of the Panama Railroad was reorganized, 
the United States on April 15, 1905, for the first 
time electing the members. Mr. Shonts was made 
president and Mr. Wallace, vice-president and gen- 
eral manager. This would further concentrate con- 
trol in the Chief Engineer over a vital factor in canal 
construction. 

These changes and other matters kept Mr. Wallace 
in Washington from March 29th to May 24th, about 
two months. The employees in the Canal Zone natu- 
rally caught something of the spirit of unrest which 
attended the reorganization of the Commission, and, 
of course, the hostile press was playing up everything 
that could embarrass the administration and damn 
the project. Then the yellow- fever epidemic broke 
out in April, 1905, to add a terrible* phase to life on 
the Isthmus. 

Having secured every change he desired, Mr. Wal- 
lace left Washington with expressions of cordial ap- 
preciation to the President and his Secretary. He 
arrived at Colon on June 2d, and the White House 
believed that a crisis in the career of the project had 

103 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

been passed successfully. They looked forward to 
smooth sailing with every confidence. 

Their surprise and chagrin, therefore, was immeas- 
urable when Mr. Wallace cabled Secretary Taft, on 
June 8th, asking that he be recalled to Washington 
for a conference. He intimated that the conference 
might result in his resignation as Chief Engineer. 
After a disheartened interview with the President, 
Secretary Taft cabled him to return. At the same 
time he cabled Gov. Magoon for a confidential view 
of Mr. Wallace's conduct. Gov. Magoon expressed 
the opinion that Mr. Wallace was quitting for a bet- 
ter salary, the yellow- fever epidemic was raging, the 
wife of Mr. Wallace's secretary had died from the 
disease, and Mr. Wallace believed that he had had an 
attack of it. 

Without intimating that he was leaving for good, 
Mr. Wallace quietly packed up or sold off his house- 
hold furniture and sailed from Colon on June i6th. 
The employees scented some important movements 
and the subordinate officials felt restrained from de- 
cisive action, although Mr. Wallace left authority to 
that effect with the engineer next in rank to him. 

Gov. Magoon cabled that the working force, al- 
ready shaken by the yellow-fever epidemic, were fur- 
ther demoralized by the belief that the Chief Engi- 
neer was seeking a softer berth. Every ship that 
left Panama at that time was carrying capacity pas- 
senger lists, and only the limited number of vessels 
prevented a wholesale exodus. It was truly a time 
that tried men's souls. 

104 



WALLACE 

President Roosevelt and Secretary Taft then de- 
cided upon a drastic course toward Mr. Wallace, as 
a means of reviving the morale of the canal workers, 
and also of bringing the American people sharply to 
a realization that the canal project was in peril, 
through a display of weakness in the face of danger, 
that would make our experiment in Panama an inter- 
national disgrace. 

Secretary Taft, with William Nelson Cromwell, 
met Mr. Wallace at the Manhattan Hotel in New 
York on June 25th. Secretary Taft listened to his 
reason for resigning, which in the main was that he 
had under consideration a position that would carry 
with it a remuneration of approximately $65,000 a 
year. One of the peculiar conditions of the new em- 
ployment was that under no circumstances was he to 
return to the Isthmus, but that he would gladly re- 
main a member of the Commission resident in the 
United States. He made some side criticisms to the 
effect that Col. Gorgas was incapable of handling the 
yellow- fever epidemic, that government red tape was 
distracting, and conditions generally were such as to 
make the new employment look attractive. 

Secretary Taft did not conceal his disappointment 
in Mr. Wallace's course. He began by reviewing how 
the government had taken him from a position pay- 
ing $15,000 a year to make him Chief Engineer of 
the canal at $25,000 a year; how that the formidable 
obstacles to be met, the supreme necessity of a canal 
to the nation, made it a patriotic work for any Amer- 

105 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

ican and an honor to be placed at the head of the 
greatest enterprise of the age. 

" For mere lucre," Mr. Taft continued, " you 
change your position overnight without thought of 
the embarrassing position in which you place your 
government by this action." 

Secretary Taft then reviewed how the Commission 
had just been reorganized to meet Mr. Wallace's 
wishes, and every change had been approved by the 
Chief Engineer. He closed by demanding the imme- 
diate resignation of Mr. Wallace. This came the 
next day, and was made public on June 28th, with 
Secretary Taft's hot rebuke, which, in the Canal Zone, 
had a most salutary effect. It put an entirely new 
complexion on their work to be told that the nation 
expected every man to do his duty, that they were 
not down there for the money they could make, nor 
were they expected to leave because of the hardships 
they would meet, but that the object of their exile 
was to give the nation something vital to its welfare. 
The desertions began to diminish at once, and the 
announcement on June 30th, that John F. Stevens, a 
Hill man, had been appointed Chief Engineer, fur- 
ther strengthened the morale of the canal organiza- 
tion. 

Theodore Roosevelt never appeared to better ad- 
vantage as a supremely able executive than during this 
crisis in the history of the canal. Before his enemies, 
and the canal's enemies, could shout their glee at the 
demoralization of the enterprise, he had closed the 
breach with the selection of another great Chief En- 

106 



WALLACE 



gineer. Even if the situation had been brought about 
by interests with sinister designs, it could not have 
been met with a more magnificent courage, and the 
canal project was strengthened by the ordeal. 



107 



CHAPTER XII 

THE CANAL UNDER STEVENS 

ANOTHER notable figure in the railroad world 
had been chosen Chief Engineer of the Pan- 
ama Canal. John F. Stevens in 1903 was general 
manager of the Great Northern Railroad Company, 
and of his selection as Chief Engineer, James J. Hill 
said that if the whole country had been ransacked no 
better man could be found. 

Mr. Stevens was about to start to the Philippine 
Islands to superintend the construction of government 
railroads, when drafted for the canal. It is not pos- 
sible to estimate the mischief that might have resulted 
if the selection of a successor to Mr. Wallace had 
been long delayed. His salary was to be $30,000 an- 
nually, or $5,000 more than that paid to Mr. Wallace. 
He was facing a situation in Panama that justified 
the figure. 

The long continued " knocking " of the canal proj- 
ect was having its effect. Not only were the men 
on the ground difficult to retain, but new ones would 
not come unless for exceptional considerations. The 
yellow-fever epidemic was still uncontrolled. An in- 
voice of the situation as left by Mr. Wallace showed 
that considerable pioneer work had been done, but the 
housing, feeding, and general preparations for the 
comfort of employees were unsolved problems. 

108 



STEVENS 

Mr. Stevens arrived at Colon on July 2^, 1905. As 
a railroad man his eye first was attracted by the con- 
gestion of freight on the wharves and the self-evident 
fact that the Panama Railroad was in a near state of 
collapse. Freight was piled up in the streets in pro- 
digious quantities and was moving over the railroad 
at a snail's pace. His first report hit off the situation 
in one sarcastic sentence: 

" About the only claim for good work heard made 
was that there had been no collisions for some time. 
A collision has its good points as well as its bad ones 
— it indicates there is something moving on the rail- 
road." 

As for the railroad tracks in the Culebra cut, he 
said they were " lines, which by the utmost stretch of 
the imagination could not be termed railroad tracks." 
Mr. Wallace had found the Panama Railroad, after 
half a century without competition, far behind the 
times in equipment, and practically no discipline or 
-efficiency existed among the employees. When Mr. 
Stevens took charge there was an improved situation, 
but the long absence in Washington of Chief Engineer 
Wallace, and his sudden departure, had caused the rail- 
road to begin a retrograde movement. 

For 31 miles the main line of the railroad had been 
retracked with American rails and the work of double- 
tracking it was just getting under way. The princi- 
pal shops were at Matachin, with a capacity of over- 
hauling five locomotives and 150 dump cars a month. 
The canal employees soon saw the caliber of man at 
their head by the way Mr. Stevens straightened out 

109 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

the railroad tangle, for the freight began to move, lax 
methods were rooted out of the system, and the sem- 
blance of an efficient organization, operating along 
modern lines, appeared. 

The Commission visited the Isthmus in July and 
August and with Mr. Stevens reached the conclusion 
that construction work should be reduced to a mini- 
mum, even to turning away employees, and all ener- 
gies bent to building up a system of feeding and 
housing the men and their families. Preparatory 
work was given the right of way over construction, 
which accounts for the comparatively little excavation 
done under the Stevens regime. The general verdict 
was that the ground work done by Mr. Wallace was 
good, in spite of disorganized conditions, and that no 
insuperable obstacles stood in the way of building the 
canal. Delays in filling requisitions undoubtedly ac- 
counted for the lack of some of the equipment and 
supplies. 

Mr. Wallace had left the following organization 
worked out on paper, with the explanation that large 
salaries had not attracted competent heads of depart- 
ments, so that Mr. Stevens found many important 
positions unfilled: 

The Department of Engineering and Construction 
was divided into five divisions, running from the At- 
lantic to the Pacific and known as the Colon, Cha- 
gres, Gamboa, Culebra, and La Boca Divisions. 

Bureau of Personnel, Transportation and Quarters. 
Bureau of Supplies. 

no 



STEVENS 

Bureau of Waterworks, Sewers, and Roads. 
Bureau of Machinery and Equipment. 
Bureau of Architecture and Equipment. 
Bureau of Meteorology and Hydraulics. 
Bureau of Mapmaking and Printing. 
Bureau of Communication. 

There were 8,312 men in the department of engi- 
neering and construction, and other employees brought 
the total to 9,500, not including the Panama Rail- 
road. Municipal improvements in Colon and Panama, 
and certain Canal Zone towns, were well under way. 
Effective progress had been made in the work of 
surveying the canal route, in making borings for lock 
sites, and in other engineering preliminaries. As 
noted, 741,644 yards had been excavated and nine 
steam shovels were at work. The 357 renovated 
French buildings and 48 new structures housed the 
employees, except those who provided shelter for 
themselves in Colon and Panama. There were no 
commissary and hotels. 

On December i, 1905, the Commission made its an- 
nual report to the President, containing Mr. Stevens' 
first review of the canal. Both he and the Commis- 
sion pleaded for " a thorough business administra- 
tion, unhampered by any tendency to technicalities, 
into which our public works sometimes drift." Like 
Mr. Wallace, Mr. Stevens found government red tape 
galling. Civil service and the eight-hour day were 
just as obnoxious, the Commission urging that " it is 
a mistake to handicap the construction of the Panama 

III 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Canal with any laws save those of police and sanita- 
tion." 

An Executive Order had made the Civil Service 
cover the Canal Zone on November 15, 1904, but 
both Mr. Wallace and Mr. Stevens protested so ear- 
nestly against the restrictions of this order that on 
January 12, 1906, President Roosevelt removed all 
employees, except clerks, from the scope of the act, 
thus allowing Mr. Stevens to employ anyone he saw 
fit on any terms he chose. The eight-hour day re- 
striction likewise was lifted, but agitation in the 
United States caused the President later to reimpose 
both limitations, with whatever increase in time and 
cost of constructing the canal they might involve. 

The Americans had been in Panama more than a 
year, and still the type of canal to be built was unde- 
cided. Mr. Wallace's service had terminated and a 
full year of Mr. Stevens' administration before the 
choice was made. In the meantime, Mr. Stevens rap- 
idly was rounding into shape an organization of 
workers, getting suitable quarters erected for the em- 
ployees who were coming in large numbers, organiz- 
ing the commissary and hotel systems, securing me- 
chanical equipment, and bringing the transportation 
facilities to a satisfactory standard. Gov. Magoon 
simultaneously was organizing a civil government 
along the lines blazed by Gov. Davis. Police, courts, 
schools, fire departments, post offices, recreation club- 
houses, churches, in short, duplicating on a scale suit- 
able to the Canal Zone the civilization of the United 
States. 

112 



STEVENS 

By June, 1906, the end of his first year as Chief 
Engineer, Mr. Stevens had made a remarkable show- 
ing in every phase of the work. There were 39 steam 
shovels at work as against 9 in 1905; the working 
force had increased to 23,901, of whom 3,264 were 
Americans. But, as showing how closely his efforts 
were concentrated on preparatory work, the total ex- 
cavation for the year was only 1,499,562 yards, the 
highest figures for one month being in March, 1906, 
when 239,178 yards were removed. 

Col. Gorgas and his sanitary department got on 
top of the yellow- fever epidemic in September, 1905, 
and in general so dominated the hitherto unheal thful 
Isthmus, that even the hostile press began to show a 
change in heart on this score, with the result that the 
immigration of workers largely increased. Recruit- 
ing agencies already had been opened in the West 
Indies, Europe, and the principal American cities. 
More than 12,000 men were imported in 1906 on con- 
tract with the Commission. The common labor was 
estimated by Mr. Stevens to be about 33 per cent as 
efficient as similar American labor. It was not until 
1906 that the wives and families of the Americans be- 
gan coming to the Canal Zone in considerable num- 
bers, although there had been a heroic band of them 
throughout the trying days before the tropical terrors 
had been conquered. 

Early in his connection with the canal, Mr. Stevens 
discovered that practically all the material in the Cu- 
lebra cut would have to be blasted before it could be 
handled by the steam shovels. " The problem of Cu- 

113 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

lebra cut," he wrote in the first annual report, " is 
one of transportation (including disposal) pure and 
simple." He had to be careful in selecting dumps so 
as to insure that they would not become an obstruc- 
tion to any type of canal or route that might be se- 
lected. " As the gift of prophecy is withheld from us 
in these latter days, all we can do now is to make such 
arrangements as may look proper as far ahead as we 
can see," he wrote in his report of 1905 on the unset- 
tled question of a sea-level or lock-type canal. 

The high wages and salaries for which the Canal 
Zone is noted originated under Mr. Stevens. So bad 
a name had been given the Isthmus in the past that 
extra inducements had to be made to attract workers, 
free quarters, pay from 30^ to 60^ higher than in the 
United States, and a rate of $20 from New York to 
Colon on steamers operated by the government, with 
other perquisites, being some of the advertised attrac- 
tions. Besides, in the latter part of Mr. Stevens' 
regime, the United States was enjoying unexampled 
prosperity, the palmy days before the panic of 1907. 
Mechanics and all kinds of workers could obtain em- 
ployment at home at high wages and would not come 
to Panama unless for the unusual inducements 
enumerated, and, in addition, vacations with full pay, 
sick leave on pay, and cheap food and other neces- 
saries. 

The Battle of the Levels 

Although the French had abandoned the idea of a 
sea-level canal in favor of a lock type, there still was 

114 




Clinedinst photo, Washington, D. C. 

John F. Stevens. 



STEVENS 

a good deal of life in the idea among the American 
people. For one thing, a sea-level canal was so much 
more easily grasped by the popular mind, and then 
all engineers concede that it is the ideal canal where 
it is practicable. In Panama, the division of opinion 
arose over this point of practicability. 

A sea-level canal aptly has been described as "a 
wide and deep passage navigable at all times, day or 
night, at all seasons and in all weathers, by all sorts 
and sizes of vessels." The lock type involves opera- 
tions not readily portrayed to the lay mind, but emi- 
nently simple when seen in practical use. Popular 
opinion, and the daily and periodical press, divided 
and fought bitterly from the time the Canal Zone was 
taken until it finally was decided by Congress, and 
even then the sea-level advocates kept up an anvil 
chorus against the lock type. 

The Walker Commission of 1901 had estimated the 
cost of a sea-level canal at $145,000,000. The 
Spooner act authorized $135,000,000 for any type that 
might be chosen, but leaned toward the lock type. 
The Commission of 1905 recommended a sea-level 
type to cost $230,500,000. Mr. Wallace later esti- 
mated the cost at sea-level at $300,000,000, exclusive 
of the $50,000,000 paid for the Canal Zone and 
French property. 

That these American estimates should come, in the 
main, under the amount actually spent by the French, 
who little more than scraped the surface, shows, for 
one thing, that the Americans believed there had been 
gross extravagance and inefficiency in the French oper- 

115 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

ations, and for another thing, that the Americans had 
no adequate grasp upon the task they were undertak- 
ing. This same insufficiency of estimates continued 
until 1908, when Col. Goethals faced the situation 
frankly and announced the cost for a lock type to be 
$375,000,000, which was far ahead of the highest 
estimate for a sea-level canal. In 1909, Col. Goethals 
said a sea-level canal would cost $563,000,000 and 
take six years longer to build than a lock canal, which 
was before the slides in the Culebra cut became so 
formidable and a sea-level canal had been shown there- 
by to be all but impossible. It is probable that a sea- 
level canal would cost around a billion dollars, and 
take from ten to twenty years longer to build, if engi- 
neers should now decide it practicable. 

President Roosevelt took a characteristic step to 
end the dispute. On June 24, 1905, a few days be- 
fore the appointment of Mr. Stevens as Chief Engi- 
neer, he named the following International Board of 
Advisory Engineers to recommend a type of canal : 

Maj.-Gen. George W. Davis, U. S. A., Chairman, 
Capt. John C. Oakes, U. S. A., Corps of Engineers, 

Secretary, 
Brig.-Gen. Henry L. Abbott, U. S. A., retired, 
Adolph Guerard, Inspector-General of Public 

Works, France, 
Edouard M. Quellenec, Consulting Engineer, Suez 

Canal, 
Henry Hunter, Engineer of Manchester Canal, 

England, 

116 



STEVENS 

Herr Eugene Tincauser, Engineer on Kiel Canal, 

Germany, 
J. W. Welcker, Engineer Dyke System, Holland, 
IsHAM Randolph, Chief Engineer, Chicago Drainage 

Canal, 
Frederick P. Stearns, Hydraulic Engineer, Boston, 
William H. Burr, Consulting Engineer, New York, 
Joseph Ripley, Chief -Engineer, Sault Ste. Marie 

Canal, 
Alfred Noble, Chief of Pennsylvania R. R. Im- 
provements, N. Y. C, 
William B. Parsons, Chief Engineer, Subway Sys- 
tem, New York. 

Out of this number, five were foreigners and the 
remainder Americans. The Board visited the Isth- 
mus in October, 1905, and reported to the President 
on January 10, 1906. The majority, composed of 
eight engineers, and comprising all of the foreigners, 
recommended a sea-level canal. Messrs. Davis, Burr, 
and Parsons were the three Americans who signed 
the majority report. The minority of five Americans 
recommended a lock- type canal with a lake at 85 feet 
above sea-level formed by a dam across the Chagres 
River at Gatun. They estimated the excavation at 
103,795,000 cubic yards, and the cost, exclusive of 
sanitation and civil government, at $139,705,200. 
Nine years, or until 191 5, was the time estimated for 
completing the canal. There were to be three locks 
in flight at Gatun, each 95 by 900 feet usable dimen- 
sions, and on the Pacific side, one lock at Pedro 

117 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Miguel, and two at La Boca, at the entrance, the dis- 
tance between Pedro Miguel and La Boca, 8 miles, 
to be a second artificial lake. The Culebra cut was to 
be 200 feet wide for 5 miles and 300 feet wide for 4 
miles. 

Chief Engineer Stevens and all but one member 
of the Commission concurred in the minority report. 
Secretary Taft's visits to the Isthmus had converted 
him to the lock type, and President Roosevelt con- 
sistently had favored it. 

The situation was one where the choice would be 
decided by the weight the President should throw to 
either report. To reject the majority report favoring 
a sea-level canal, and to advocate the minority report 
for a lock- type canal, was a responsibility of unusual 
magnitude for an Executive who professed to have 
no technical engineering knowledge. Yet President 
Roosevelt made the momentous decision without hesi- 
tation, sending a strong message recommending the 
minority report. It was, perhaps, the greatest crisis 
in the history of the project, and the American peo- 
ple have to thank his sound judgment in preventing a 
sea-level experiment that, undoubtedly, in the light of 
recent years, would have exhausted the patience and 
maybe the finances of the nation. 

Congress debated the issue until June 21st, when 
the Senate by the close vote of 36 to 31 decided for 
a lock type, and on June 28th, the House concurred, 
the bill becoming law on June 29, 1906. The sea- 
level advocates were beaten, but they watched opera- 
tions sullenly and flared up into hot criticism fre- 

118 



STEVENS 

quently, with dismal prophecies of the impending 
collapse of the lock canal. 

Of the three Chief Engineers who have directed 
the construction of the canal, Mr. Wallace alone fa- 
vored the sea-level plan. He uniformly opposed a 
dam at Gatun, expressing the opinion that there was 
not a foundation at that point for so heavy a struc- 
ture, nor did he believe from his investigations that 
the earth there would support the great locks contem- 
plated in the minority report. Any type of canal, he 
reasoned, which would require years to repair a break 
was inadvisable, and even a lock type should be con- 
vertible to a sea-level canal, if such action should 
appear desirable. Messrs. Stevens and Goethals were 
equally unwavering in their advocacy of a lock canal. 

Two years and two months had passed from the 
time the Americans came to Panama, in May, 1904, 
to July I, 1906, before this decision was made, and 
at last the Commission knew what plan of canal was 
to be followed. In September, 1906, Mr. Stevens 
started the excavations in the sites for the Gatun 
locks, the Pedro Miguel lock, and the Gatun Dam 
Spillway. Surveys were begun for relocating the Pan- 
ama Railroad which, for a considerable distance, 
would be swallowed up by the completed canal. The 
fifteen months' preparatory work was beginning to 
tell in the increased excavations in the Culebra cut as 
the organization was getting its stride. Commissaries, 
which sold everything the canal employee needed, 
were in operation in the principal towns, the hotels 
for the bachelors were well organized, quarters had 

119 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

been erected until all were housed, though at times 
rather crowded, machinery, supplies, and equipment 
were on hand, or ordered, to the extent of 80 per cent 
of what would be needed to complete the canal, health 
conditions were admirable, and the whole situation 
was shaping for the real work of building the canal. 

President Roosevelt paid the Canal Zone a visit in 
November, 1906. It was a trip of exploration for 
him, and the way he ignored the formal plans for his 
entertainment delighted the employees. Subordinate 
officials were rather anxious that he should inspect 
just the things they had spick and span for him to in- 
spect, but from the time he landed at Colon, where 
he jumped on a horse instead of into a waiting car- 
riage and rode down the unpaved side streets, noting 
the mud and unfinished improvements, until he ate 
in the line hotels with the dirt-covered employees, 
inspected the kitchens and quarters, and had nosed in 
and out of every part of the canal, he led them a 
merry chase. The enthusiasm for the " daddy " of 
the project was boundless, and the shortcomings he 
noted resulted in better conditions of employment for 
the men. 

One evidence of the growing luxury of living con- 
ditions in the Canal Zone was the installation on Jan- 
uary I, 1907, of electric lights in the quarters of the 
married and bachelor employees at Empire and Cu- 
lebra. Other towns soon were furnished with elec- 
tricity. The first public school had been opened a 
year before this event, or on January 2, 1906. Gov. 
Magoon, on September 25, 1906, had been transferred 

120 



STEVENS 

to Cuba by the President, occasioning the first break 
in the Shonts Commission. The summer and fall of 
1906 and the winter of 1907 saw another great con- 
troversy raging around the canal, which, like the bat- 
tle of the levels, was to be decided arbitrarily by 
President Roosevelt. 

The Contract Plan 

Chairman Shonts long had entertained the opinion 
that the canal should be constructed by private con- 
tractors. He pressed the plan so vigorously, and the 
popular opinion of the inefficiency of the government 
was so strong, that the President authorized Secretary 
Taft to ask for bids on October 9, 1906. 

By this time conditions had so improved in the 
Canal Zone that the employees viewed the assumption 
of control by contractors as likely to militate against 
their interests. Mr. Stevens was making admirable 
headway, both in the creation of an effective organi- 
zation and the physical equipment to do the actual 
work of construction. He had little enough patience 
with governmental methods, but on the point of secur- 
ing competent workers, which Mr. Shonts seemed to 
think the government could not do so speedily and 
well as a contractor, Mr. Stevens said in his report 
of 1905 : " The very liberal and wise policy which 
the Commission is carrying out in its care of its em- 
ployees and in its treatment of them in every way 
must, after patient and careful selection, result in a 
personnel entirely capable of producing good results." 

The plan Mr. Shonts advanced for turning the job 
121 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

over to a private contractor, left in the hands of the 
government the last word on every vital question 
that might arise. Viewed to-day, the terms of the 
invitation for bids seem to have been drawn with so 
much rigidity as completely to have robbed any con- 
tractor of the very flexibility of action which appeared 
to be the main drawback of a government enterprise. 
The government was to decide upon the cost and 
plans and the contractor was to receive a percentage 
of that amount for his services. Civil government and 
sanitation were to remain in the hands of the gov- 
ernment. 

It is safe to assume that had the plan been adopted, 
it would have broken down in less than three months, 
because the contractor either would have settled to the 
mere foremanship of the job, with the government 
engineers the court of last resort on all issues, or 
he would have asserted an independence of judgment 
and action which the terms of the contract did not 
permit. Either result would have been disastrous to 
the canal project. 

Those who favored the contract plan had some con- 
siderations which were potent with them, but which 
they did not shout from the housetops. They knew 
that the terms of the contract on which bids were 
invited practically reduced the contractor to the posi- 
tion of superintendent, but by nominally placing the 
work in his hands they would get the private contrac- 
tor's freedom of action as to hours of work, standard 
of wages, fitness of employees, and cheapness of mar- 
kets for materials. In other words, so long as the 

122 



STEVENS 

government itself built the canal, the eight-hour day, 
civil-service regulations, and the whole web of official 
procedure that enveloped the undertaking, would be 
operative. The contract plan offered a neat way of 
sidestepping these cumbersome conditions of doing 
business. 

Mr. Wallace heartily favored the contract plan, ex- 
pressing his belief in " the utter impossibility of the 
United States Government carrying on a constructive 
enterprise in a common sense, businesslike manner." 
Whatever his attitude at first, toward the last Mr. 
Stevens opposed the contract plan, as he believed that 
the work he had done in the Canal Zone was efficient, 
and if a little relaxation in red tape was indulged, the 
canal could be built more advantageously by the Gov- 
ernment. 

Bids for constructing the canal by private contract 
were opened at Washington on January 12, 1907, and 
rejected on the ground that they failed to meet the 
requirements of the government. The Oliver-Bangs 
syndicate was nearest in its bid to the specifications. 
The real reason for rejecting the bids was that both 
the country and the administration had undergone a 
change of heart as to the wisdom of the contract plan. 

Another epoch in the life of the canal project was 
marked by the President's action in definitely commit- 
ting the enterprise to direct government supervision. 
Chairman Shonts resigned, effective March 4, 1907. 
An executive order then consolidated the offices of 
Chairman and Chief Engineer in Mr. Stevens. On 
March i6th the remainder of the Commission, except 

123 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Col. Gorgas, resigned, to be followed on April ist by 
the resignation of Chief Engineer Stevens. His res- 
ignation came like a sickening accident to the canal 
employees. " The Chief," as he was called familiarly, 
had established himself firmly in their minds and 
hearts as a thoroughly competent engineer and just 
administrator. No official explanation of the motive 
for his quitting had been made, but the general un- 
derstanding is that he opposed the assignment of gov- 
ernment engineers to the Commission as likely to 
create friction with civilian engineers and partly to 
a stiff communication he sent the President on the 
limitations of red tape and governmental methods gen- 
erally. His departure was featured by a remarkable 
demonstration at Colon, when he was presented with 
a gold watch, a diamond ring, and a silver service by 
the employees, who did not restrain their emotion at 
his loss. 

Mr. Stevens was not soured by the termination of 
his services as Chief Engineer. His faith in the ulti- 
mate success of the project has remained unshaken, 
and in the Engineering News of December 31, 1908, 
a year and three quarters after his resignation, he 
wrote that the public criticism of the locks and dams 
was erroneous, and advised that Col. Goethals be 
backed up in his admirable efforts. The greatest 
tribute to his work as Chief Engineer is found in the 
fact that the organization of employees was so thor- 
ough and the foundational work so well done that the 
enterprise was not harmed by a change in managing 
directors. 

124 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE CANAL UNDER GOETHALS 

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT had at last found 
public sentiment educated to the point where the 
canal could be put exclusively in the hands of gov- 
ernment engineers, following the untimely resigna- 
tion of Mr. Wallace, the belief that private interests 
were seeking to grab the project, and the loss of Mr. 
Stevens. It had taken three years to reach this atti- 
tude. The personnel of the third Commission he ap- 
pointed, on April i, 1907, was as follows: 

LiEUT.-CoL. George W. Goethals, Chairman and 

Chief Engineer, 
Maj. D. D. Gaillard, U. S. A., 
Maj. William L. Sibert, U. S. A., 
Mr. H. H. Rousseau, U. S. N., 
Col. W. C. Gorgas, U. S. A., Medical Corps, 
Mr. J. C. S. Blackburn, 
Mr. Jackson Smith, 
Mr. Joseph Bucklin Bishop, Secretary. 

The President also took advantage of the reorgan- 
ization of the Commission to further consolidate 
power in the Chairman. Not only was Col. Goethals 
made Chairman of the Isthmian Canal Commission, 
and Chief Engineer of the Panama Canal, but the 
executive power in the Canal Zone, formerly exer- 

125 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

cised by the Governor, was vested in him, as well as 
the Presidency of the Panama Railroad Company, 
thus making every official and employee, and the mem- 
bers of the Commission, subordinate to him. 

In former years the Governor had exercised exten- 
sive and supreme powers within his sphere, ranking 
higher than the Chief Engineer. Where the Chair- 
man, Chief Engineer, and Governor had rival powers, 
friction was sure to develop, and did so develop. 
Under the new order the Governor was reduced to 
the title of Head of the Department of Civil Admin- 
istration, reporting to the Chairman, as did the Chief 
Sanitary Officer and Division Engineers. Thus the 
former concentration of the power of a Commission 
of seven members into an Executive Committee of 
three, was still further concentrated into one man 
and so gave Col. Goethals the absolute authority he 
ever since has exercised in the Canal Zone, acknowl- 
edging only the Secretary of War and the President 
as his superiors. 

Mr. Jackson Smithes appointment to the Commis- 
sion is the only instance of a civilian coming to the 
Canal Zone as an employee and attaining to the posi- 
tion of Commissioner. He had shown such remark- 
able ability as the head of the Bureau of Labor, Quar- 
ters, and Subsistence, in recruiting workers, housing 
them and supplying them with food, that his services 
were recognized by elevation to the Commission. Mr. 
Blackburn, of Kentucky, was the head of the Depart- 
ment of Civil Administration, and Mr. Bishop was to 
edit a weekly Canal Record, the official Commission 

126 



GOETHALS 

publication, the first issue of which appeared on Sep- 
tember 4, 1907, and every Wednesday since. Five 
of the new Commissioners and the Secretary have 
been on the job continuously from that day to this, 
the changes coming in the other two members on Sep- 
tember 14, 1908, when Mr. Smith resigned and was 
succeeded by Lieut.-Col. H. F. Hodges, and Mr. 
Blackburn being succeeded by Mr. Maurice H. 
Thatcher, on April 12, 1910. 

Col. Goethals appreciated the feeling the employees 
had over the prospect of army engineers for directors 
of the enterprise, and in his first speech in the Canal 
Zone dispelled the idea of militarism in the canal man- 
agement. He promised a fair hearing to every man 
with a grievance, the manner in which he carried out 
this promise being one of the distinctively great qual- 
ities he later revealed as an administrator. Few per- 
sons in the Canal Zone had heard of Col. Goethals 
before his appointment as Chief Engineer. He had vis- 
ited the Isthmus in 1905 to study it with a view of 
recommending plans for fortifications, but the em- 
ployees who had been with the job then scarcely were 
impressed by his presence. Yet, his previous experi- 
ence had qualified him ideally for the important work 
now in hand. He had been building locks and dams, 
had been Chief of Engineers in the Spanish- Amer- 
ican War, was a graduate of and had taught in West 
Point, and had seen other construction experience that 
made him at home in any kind of work the canal 
should require. Messrs. Stevens and Wallace lacked 
his knowledge of lock building, and they lacked the 

127 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

military point of view which was to become essential 
in directing the fortification work, and the general 
policy of treating the Canal Zone as a military reser- 
vation, even though the project is neutral and open to 
the nations of the world. 

Looking back from this perspective of years it 
seems fortuitous that the canal has had the impress 
of both civilian and army engineers. When Mr. 
Stevens left, the enterprise was ready for just the 
treatment it has received under Col. Goethals, which 
is, that we are not investing $375,000,000 as a mere 
adjunct to commerce, but as a means of national de- 
fense vitally necessary. The military coloring Col. 
Goethals has given the canal will not im.pair its util- 
ity in the world's trade, yet it will keep it ready for 
the emergencies of war in a manner that the civilian 
view point hardly could have been expected to pro- 
duce. 

Contrast, for a moment, the situation as faced by 
Col. Goethals with that faced by Mr. Stevens in 1905. 
In 1907, fire was under the boiler and steam was up. 
When Mr. Stevens relinquished the throttle, the army 
of workers had begun to come close to the million 
mark in monthly excavations in the Culebra cut. 
There were 6;^ steam shovels at work on the canal; 
100 French and 184 American locomotives, and 2,700 
cars of all kinds were in use; the Panama Railroad 
had been double-tracked throughout, and the mileage 
in the Culebra cut and elsewhere brought up to 106- 
.78 miles; 18 Lidgerwood unloaders, 13 bank spread- 
ers, 33 unloading plows, 3 track shifters and 7 pile 

128 



GOETHALS 

drivers were in service ; the machine shops at Gorgona 
and Empire were equipped for any kind of repair 
work or original construction. 

There were approximately 30,000 employees, and 
the recruiting agencies in Europe, the West Indies, 
and the United States constantly were sending addi- 
tions. Quarters for employees, office buildings, and 
all other structures consisted of 2,009 buildings of 
American design, and 1,536 remodeled French build- 
ings. The commissary for supplying food, clothing, 
and general merchandise to employees was organized 
and had branches in seven Canal Zone towns. There 
were fifteen hotels in operation for bachelor employees 
and four recreation clubhouses had been constructed, 
beside church and lodge buildings. Twenty-four pub- 
lic schools afforded educational facilities to the Canal 
Zone children. The police system, the courts, post 
offices, and fire departments were thoroughly organ- 
ized. In short, the preparatory stage of the canal had 
passed and the constructive stage had begun. 

As compared with the total excavation required for 
the completed canal, in round numbers 221,000,000 
yards, the record made by Mr. Stevens, in removing 
from the Culebra cut during the twenty-one months 
he was Chief Engineer, 5,073,098 yards, is not signifi- 
cant. The construction of the canal distinctly is the 
work of the Goethals administration ; still, the prepar- 
atory work had to be done because, as Col. Goethals 
himself states: 

" It was only after these various yet necessary ad- 
juncts had been provided and the forces for their 

129 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

operation were organized that the principal work in 
hand — the building of the canal — could be pushed 
forward with any hope of success, and too much 
praise cannot be given those who conceived and es- 
tablished them in a working condition." 

Necessarily, all the basic work accomplished under 
Wallace and Stevens is lost sight of in view of the 
magnificent superstructure erected under Col. Goeth- 
als. The modern sightseer has nothing to remind 
him of the wretched conditions of the first two years, 
the battle with disease, the arduous labor of creating 
in the jungle a duplicate American civilization, the 
tantalizing struggle with government red tape before 
a stick of timber, a pound of iron, a shipment of food, 
or an efficient workman could be secured. 

The first vivid impression to-day upon the tourist 
viewing the colossal locks and the artificial canyon 
called the Culebra cut, the beautiful towns, and the 
whole paraphernalia of a well-ordered civil govern- 
ment is similar to that experienced upon the first 
sight of Niagara Falls, with this exception : The Pan- 
ama Canal is the work of man, and the responsibility 
for it may be fixed. An outburst of praise is the 
spontaneous result, and Col. Goethals, being the vis- 
ible head of the project, naturally bears the brunt of 
this admiration. Yet, excluding the construction 
work, all the collective activities, such as feeding and 
housing and providing for the needs of the army of 
employees, as well as the whole civil government, was 
the work of the Stevens and Wallace administrations. 

130 




Copyright lyy Harris & E icing. 

Col. George W- Goethals. 



GOETHALS 

Col. Goethals simply has enlarged the organizations 
they left. 

Perhaps the chief reason that Col. Goethals so gen- 
erally is accepted as the sole genius of the canal is 
found in the fact that he stuck to the job which two 
others had abandoned. Justice, however, is not 
wholly served by this consideration. A simile may 
be found in the task of breaking a broncho. The canal 
job threw both Wallace and Stevens and then Goeth- 
als stuck in the saddle. But the energy that the 
broncho spent to dismount the first two riders so 
weakened him that by the time the third was in the 
saddle he was conquerable. The third rider may have 
been no better than the two who were thrown, and 
their efforts undoubtedly paved the way for his suc- 
cess. 

Col. Goethals deserves the admiration that his serv- 
ice on the canal has evoked, but the generality of 
writers, looking at what exists to-day and heedless 
of the beginnings of the task, lose their perspective 
and commonly fall into the error of ignoring the very 
remarkable and wholly vital preparatory work under 
John F. Stevens. This writer believes that if Col. 
Goethals had been selected in 1904, there only w^ould 
have been one Chief Engineer of the canal, barring 
his death, so eminent are the abilities of the army 
engineer, but candor requires the statement that he 
assumed control at a time when conditions were soft 
as compared with the early stages of the project. 

President Roosevelt had selected in Messrs. Gail- 
lard, Sibert, Rousseau, and later, Hodges, engineers 

131 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

of exceptional ability, who, with S. B. Williamson, 
picked by Col. Goethals, demonstrated capacities which 
in a large measure account for the splendid progress 
of the Goethals administration. Any one of them 
would have been available for the highest position in 
the organization. 

It would be erroneous to assume that Col. Goethals 
had nothing to do but sit back and watch the signals 
on the main line of canal construction, as indicated by 
his predecessors. The decks, indeed, had been cleared 
for action and the blue-prints nicely finished and 
tied with ribbon, but the real struggle was just begin- 
ning. He had the tools for the job placed in his 
hands, but their skillful use devolved entirely upon 
him. Besides, changes were made in the original plans 
and unanticipated problems arose, which made Col. 
Goethals' direction of the enterprise in the highest 
degree complex and exceptional. 

The first annual report of the Commission, to be 
written as of June 30th, the end of the government's 
fiscal year, was issued by Col. Goethals in 1907, three 
months after Mr. Stevens resigned. The President 
had asked Col. Goethals to report on the contract plan 
after an inspection of the canal, and this masterly 
argument against turning it over to private contractors 
is the report's most notable feature, aside from its 
unusual comprehensiveness. Incidentally, the argu- 
ment is a high tribute to the work of Mr. Stevens. 

Col. Goethals pointed out that the canal required 
special equipment which would be useless to a con- 
tractor after its completion, and therefore could be 

132 



GOETHALS 

bought just as cheaply by the government; that the 
government had had more experience in lock build- 
ing than any contractor, and had had sufficient ex- 
perience in dredging and excavating to insure econ- 
omy. When the profits a contractor would make 
were deducted, the government could equal his effi- 
ciency. He pointed to the Congressional Library at 
Washington as an example of work done satisfactor- 
ily by the government. No contractor had an organ- 
ization that could cover all phases of the canal, and 
the government already had as good an organization 
as any contractor could get. The French had tried the 
contract system, antagonizing labor thereby, and Italy 
already had served notice that its citizens could not 
work in the Canal Zone if the government abandoned 
the job. Finally, endless friction between government 
inspectors and the contractor would result, and on the 
side of civil government and sanitation the contractor 
could not possibly equal the efficiency of the govern- 
ment. 

Taking a survey of the conditions when he took 
charge. Col. Goethals found that 80 per cent of the 
plant for finishing the canal was on the ground or or- 
dered. The preliminary work for relocating the Pan- 
ama Railroad had been done, and actual construction 
of the new line was begun in June, 1907, shortly after 
his arrival. Excavations in the lock sites were un- 
completed, and it was two years later, in 1909, be- 
fore any concrete was laid. In April, the month he 
arrived, nearly 900,000 yards were removed from the 
Culebra cut, the best month's work to that date. By 

133 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

December, 1907, the million mark for the Cut was 
passed and never has been lowered except for one 
month, May, 1908. Dredging in the Atlantic and 
Pacific entrances of the canal had gone ahead stead- 
ily, though not extensively, the amount removed in the 
Atlantic entrance being 1,732,712 yards, and in the 
Pacific entrance, 1,956,895 yards, from 1904 to April 
I, 1907. Less than 6,000,000 yards had been removed 
from the Culebra cut by both Wallace and Stevens. 

In August, four months after Col. Goethals ar- 
rived, the organization in the department of construc- 
tion and engineering had developed such a momentum 
that it was necessary to ask authority from the Presi- 
dent to exceed the regular appropriation by $8,000,- 
000 for the fiscal year to end in June, 1908. This is 
additional evidence of the efficiency of the prepara- 
tory work under Mr. Stevens. 

The fall of 1907 and the month of October pre- 
sented a new problem in the canal construction which 
ever since has been one of the most formidable and 
uncertain factors in the project. A slide began at 
Cucaracha on the east side of the Cut near the town 
of Culebra and suddenly filled the Cut, closing it for 
transportation. In 1884, the French had noted this 
earth movement, and during Col. Goethals' first years 
on the canal it involved an area of forty-seven acres. 
Before dirt trains could move through the Cut, steam 
shovels had to work night and day for several weeks, 
and from that time onward the slides have been the 
bugbear of the organization, not because they were 
insuperable, but from the extra work they involved 

134 



GOETHALS 

and the possibility that they might delay the comple- 
tion of the project. In the closing days the slides are 
still the unknown factor. 

Right then it was realized that the canal involved 
more excavation than the minority of the Board of 
Advisory Engineers had estimated. Several impor- 
tant changes in the plans for the canal came within 
the first eighteen months of the Goethals adminis- 
tration to make the job far more stupendous than 
contemplated in the plans of 1906. Col. Goethals rec- 
ommended, and President Roosevelt approved on De- 
cember 20, 1907, a change in the location of two of 
the Pacific locks. The revised plans changed two 
locks from La Boca, on the Pacific coast, to Mira- 
flores, about seven miles inland, which not only would 
make them safe from bombardment, but was a more 
practicable engineering plan. A mile and a half far- 
ther inland were the Pedro Miguel locks, which would 
raise ships the final height to the great Gatun Lake, 
at its Pacific terminal, and between the Pedro Miguel 
and Miraflores locks was a small artificial lake. From 
Miraflores to the Pacific, a sea-level channel 500 feet 
wide was to be dug. 

Another change in the plans was approved by the 
President on recommendations by the Navy Board, 
on January 15, 1908. The locks were ordered en- 
larged from 95 by 900 feet to no by 1,000 feet, 
usable dimensions, to meet the anticipated increase 
in the size of commercial and war vessels. Col. 
Goethals did not think a width of no feet necessary, 
favoring 100 feet width, but his judgment in this 

135 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

instance has proved to be wrong, as the latest Argen- 
tine battleship is 98 feet wide, leaving only 12 feet 
surplus in the width of the locks, at no feet. The 
Pennsylvania of our Navy will be 97 feet wide, leav- 
ing 13 feet, or 6J feet on each side of the ship in the 
locks. The Imperator, the latest giant of the Ham- 
burg-American fleet, is 96 feet wide and 900 feet long, 
so that it appears that the locks may become too nar- 
row before they become too short. The cost of the 
locks was increased $5,000,000 by the change in plans. 
A third vital change in the original plans came on 
October 23, 1908, when the President authorized the 
widening of the Culebra cut for five miles from 200 
feet to 300 feet at the bottom. This would enable 
ships to pass going in opposite directions anywhere 
in the Cut, and increased the cost of this part of the 
canal by $14,000,000. Since these three important 
changes there have been no substantial changes in the 
canal plans, except the decrease in the proposed height 
of the huge Gatun dam. Additional excavation to the 
extent of 70,871,594 cubic yards was necessitated 
by the new plans over the estimate of 103,795,000 
yards made in 1906, or a total of 174,666,594 yards 
for the completed canal. But slides that later devel- 
oped, and further changes in the plans since 1908 
have added 47,000,000 yards to that total, bringing it 
up to 221,000,000 yards. Thus Col. Goethals has had 
to dig more than twice as much dirt as Mr. Stevens 
expected to take out, and is doing it in less time than 
was estimated for the original yardage ! The original 
canal of 103,795,000 yards was dug by the Americans 

136 



GOETHALS 

by April 6, 191 o, six years after work began, and two 
years and a half of that time had been spent in pre- 
paratory work. 

Basing his figures on the revised plans, Col. Goeth- 
als in 1908 issued the following estimate of the cost 
of the Panama Canal : 

Atlantic Division — 7 Miles 

Breakwater in Limon Bay $11,432,000 

From Caribbean Sea, channel to Ga- 

tun Locks 17,736,000 

Gatun Locks, three twin locks 25,824,000 

Gatun Dam 13,572,000 

$68,564,000 

Central Division— 32 Miles 

Channel from Gatun Locks to Bas 

Obispo $7.977>ooo 

Culebra Cut, Nine Miles, Bas Obispo 

to Pedro Miguel Lock 80,481,000 

$88,458,000 

Pacific Division — 8 Miles 

Pedro Miguel Lock $12,693,000 

Pedro Miguel Dam 251,000 

Miraflores Locks 19,715,000 

Miraflores Dam 2,156,000 

Channel, Pedro Miguel to Pacific 13,170,000 

$47,985,000 
137 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

New Panama Railroad $8,164,000 

Land Damages 500,000 

General Items 

Municipal Improvements $12,114,000 

Buildings 14,651,000 

General Expenses, Salaries, Subsist- 
ence, etc 23,730,000 

Loans to P. R. R 8,300,000 

Contingencies 20,000,000 

Lighthouses, Ships, Wharves 3,850,000 

Double-tracking, Land and Stock Pur- 
chases 1,450,000 

$84,095,000 
Grand Total Cost of Construction.. $297,766,000 

All Other Items 

Sanitation $20,053,000 

Civil Administration • 7,382,000 

Paid for French Property 40,000,000 

Paid for Canal Zone 10,000,000 

$77,435,000 
Total Cost for Completed Canal. . . $375,201,000 

Beginning July i, 1908, Col. Goethals initiated 
changes in the organization, which was to be the final 
one for the canal. The Department of Engineering 
and Construction was divided into three grand divi- 

138 



GOETHALS 

sions, to be known as the Atlantic, Central, and Pa- 
cific. The Atlantic division comprised that part of 
the canal which extended from deep water in the 
Caribbean Sea to, and including, the Gatun locks and 
dam, about seven miles of the canal. The Cen- 
tral division comprised the channel through the Cha- 
gres River valley from the Gatun Locks to Bas 
Obispo, where the Culebra cut began, and for nine 
miles through the continental divide to the Pedro 
Miguel Lock, about thirty- two miles of the canal. The 
Pacific division comprised the Pedro Miguel Lock 
and Dam, the short channel to the Miraflores Locks 
and Dam, and including those features, and the chan- 
nel to deep water in the Pacific, about eight miles of 
the canal. 

Of the forty-seven miles of the canal proper, the 
Central division had the greatest mileage, its construc- 
tion was to be the costliest and the material handled 
to be far in excess of either of the other two divisions. 
It is in the Central division that the main excavation 
of the canal has been made, as the mountain chain 
had to be pierced with a cut, the bottom of which 
would be only forty feet above sea-level, necessitating 
digging down from the highest point on the surface, 
a depth of 272 feet, between Gold and Contractor's 
hills. The French dug down 161 feet at this point, 
but not so wide as the American plans required so that 
considerably more than iii feet depth remained for 
the Americans to dig. From this highest point the 
mountains slope toward the Atlantic and Pacific with 
a consequent lessening of the depth of the excavations 

139 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

to reach the proposed bottom of the canal. Practically 
all the material had to be blasted before removal. 

Since 1908 the organization has remained un- 
changed as to the heads of the divisions in the depart- 
ment of engineering and construction. As finally 
designed by Col. Goethals, the organization of the 
canal forces is as follows, with the incumbents as of 
July I, 1912: 

Engineering and Construction 

Col. Geo. W. Goethals, Chairman and Chief Engi- 
neer, Culebra. 

CoL. H. F. Hodges, Assistant Chief Engineer, in 
charge of Lock and Dam construction, Culebra. 

Civil Engineer H. H. Rousseau, Assistant to the 
Chief Engineer, in charge of mechanical equip- 
ment and supervision of expenditures and esti- 
mates, Culebra. 

LiEUT.-CoL. D. D. Gaillard, Engineer, Central Divi- 
sion, Empire. 

LiEUT.-CoL. William L. Sibert, Engineer, Atlantic 
Division, Gatun, 

S. B. Williamson, Engineer, Pacific Division, Coro- 
zal, 

A. L. Robinson, Superintendent, Mechanical Division, 
Gorgona. 

All Other Departments 

LiEUT.-CoL. Eugene T. Wilson, Subsistence Officer, 

Cristobal, 
CoL. C. A. Devol, Chief Quartermaster, Culebra, 

140 



GOETHALS 

Mr. Maurice H. Thatcher, Head of Civil Admin- 
istration, Ancon, 
H. A. GuDGER, Chief Justice, Ancon, 
Frank Feuille, Counsel and Chief Attorney, Ancon, 
CoL. W. C. GoRGAS, Chief Sanitary Officer, Ancon, 
Edward J. Williams, Disbursing Officer, Empire, 
H. A. A. Smith, Examiner of Accounts, Empire, 
Maj. F. C. Boggs, General Purchasing Officer, Wash- 
ington, D. C, 
J. A. Smith, Superintendent, Panama Railroad, 
Colon. 

The headquarters of the division engineers and the 
department heads are in the towns nearest to the 
scenes of their activities. Beneath the higher officials 
are a host of assistants who exercise important super- 
visory functions, and then come the 35,000 employees. 

How largely the Army and Navy have dominated 
the canal, since 1907, is shown by the foregoing or- 
ganization, in which nine out of seventeen heads of 
departments are from the government forces. But 
this does not show the extent of this domination, 
because the full organization of subordinate officials 
shows twenty-two additional Army and Navy men in 
important positions. 

The Pacific Division is the only one of the three 
grand divisions with a civilian engineer in charge, and 
there are no Army or Navy men in this division from 
top to bottom. The idea seems to have been to pit a 
civilian engineer against the Army men, who are in 
charge of the Atlantic and Central Divisions. The 

141 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Pacific Division, under Mr. Williamson, substantially 
demands the same engineering ability as the Atlantic 
Division under Lieut.-Col. Sibert, because each in- 
cludes lock and dam construction and channel dredg- 
ing. The cost-keeping accountant has shown where 
the civilian engineer has done his work more cheaply 
than the Army engineer, but the difference is ac- 
counted for in the physical obstacles that must be sur- 
mounted in the Atlantic Division, in obtaining sand 
and rock for the locks. 

None of the complaints at government red tape 
which bristled all through the annual reports of 
Messrs. Stevens and Wallace may be noted in Col. 
Goethals' reports. The Army men on the canal might 
exclaim, with Brer Rabbit, that they were born and 
bred in the briar patch of red tape, and were just in 
their element when dropped into the Big Ditch. Col. 
Goethals looked ahead in making up his annual esti- 
mates of appropriations needed for the year in ad- 
vance, and in making orders for equipment, materials 
and supplies, so that much of the vexation of the early 
years was avoided. Every head of a department must 
hand in an estimate of what will be needed to run him 
for the ensuing year and this plan keeps the canal 
ahead of its demands in all lines. 

The equanimity with which Col. Goethals has met 
every unexpected development in the construction 
work is a distinguishing feature of the man's mental 
processes. If he ever has for one moment entertained 
the shadow of a doubt of the success of the lock- type 
canal, he has not allowed his fears to be manifested. 

142 



GOETHALS 

The slides, the slip in the Gatun dam, the volcanic 
evidences in the Culebra cut, the cracks in the lock 
walls, earthquake disturbances, and a host of lesser 
troubles have not shaken his faith. One can hear em- 
ployees and subordinate officials voicing all kinds of 
dark forebodings, but never the Chief Engineer. 

The mammoth Gatun dam had been begun in 1906, 
and by 1908 was taking form under the constant 
dumping of rock and earth from the Culebra cut. 
On November 20, 1908, a toe of the great dam slipped, 
where the dam intersected the old French canal chan- 
nel, carrying about 200 feet of the structure away. 
The hostile press, and those who had consistently op- 
posed a dam at Gatun, immediately raised a storm of 
criticism against the stability of the proposed artificial 
mountain. The old wound, caused from the battle 
of the levels, was reopened and so violent was the out- 
burst that President Roosevelt took a characteristic 
step to quiet the issue. 

He asked President-elect Taft to go to the Isthmus, 
accompanied by Frederic P. Stearns, Arthur P. Davis, 
Henry A. Allen, James D. Schuyler, Isham Randolph, 
John R. Freeman and Allen Hazen, all eminent engi- 
neers, to make an investigation. The report made on 
February 16, 1909, completely vindicated the plan for 
a dam at Gatun with the statement that if any error 
had been made, it was on the side of precaution. They 
found the dam started along lines so excessively stable 
that they recommended that the height be cut from 
135 feet above sea-level to 115 feet, which would still 

143 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

leave the top of the dam thirty feet above the level 
of Gatun Lake. 

An absolutely free hand always has been given to 
critics of the canal. Having nothing to conceal, and 
with firm faith in the technical soundness of the plans 
adopted, the government has had nothing it wished 
to keep from the light. Whenever criticism of any 
feature became especially severe, President Roosevelt 
promptly answered it by a full and scientific investiga- 
tion with the inevitable result that the critics slunk 
into silence. Since President Taft has been in office 
the canal has been advanced to the point where the 
sceptical are cautious in criticism, and only some 
catastrophe of nature, in reasonable probability, can 
undo the achievement. 

The six years from January i, 1907, to January i, 
1913, constitute the main construction period of the 
Panama Canal. Col. Goethals has been Chief Engi- 
neer all but three months of that time. Steadily, foot 
by foot, the walls of the locks crept up and the bottom 
of the Culebra cut went down. By October, 1908, 
the preparatory work, substantially accomplished by 
Mr. Stevens, passed its highest point, and all energies 
were centered on the work of construction. Quarters, 
municipal work, road-making, subsistence and com- 
missary were solved problems and the " No Help 
Wanted " sign was displayed, the labor problem, too, 
being substantially worked out. The chief business 
was to make the organization more efficient by antici- 
pating needs of equipment and supplies, and keeping 
the morale of the workers to a keen edge through ab- 

144 



GOETHALS 

solute justice. Col. Gorgas had the health problem 
in hand. 

Sixty-three steam shovels, in 1907, were increased 
to 100; the 284 locomotives were augmented to 315; 
cars of all kinds from 2,700 to 4,356; the mileage in 
the Canal Zone was increased from 185 to about 500 
miles for the Panama Railroad and Commission 
tracks ; the number of unloaders, bank spreaders, track 
shifters and pile drivers was increased from a third to 
three times the number left by Mr. Stevens; twenty 
dredges were put in service, 560 drills for blasting, 
fifty-seven cranes, twelve tow boats, eleven clapets, 
seventy barges and lighters, fourteen launches, beside 
much other machinery and equipment not so note- 
worthy. The foregoing figures do not include the 
Panama Railroad equipment, which consists of seventy 
locomotives, 1,534 cars and coaches, and various other 
rolling stock common to a railroad. Practically all 
repairs and creative mechanical work was concentrated 
in the Gorgona and Empire shops, with capacities com- 
mensurate with the equipment. The Empire shop 
specialized on steam shovel repairs, but in July, 19 12, 
the bulk of its work was consolidated with Gorgona. 
The date when the equipment reached a maximum is 
fixed by Col. Goethals as July i, 1910. About 350,000 
tons of coal and 500,000 barrels of oil have been used 
annually. 

Dredging had progressed in the Pacific entrance to 
a point where five miles of the canal could be opened 
to navigation, on February i, 1909. The Newport 
and San Hose, of the Pacific Mail Fleet, of American 

145 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

register, were the first ships to go through. Consider- 
able excavating was done in both entrances by steam 
shovels, the water being held out by dikes. 

A striking instance of miscalculating the cost of 
one phase of canal construction is found in the esti- 
mate made by Prof. Burr, of the first Commission, 
which placed the cost of private lands that would be 
used in the Gatun Lake and elsewhere at $18,656,000. 
As a matter of fact something more than $300,000 
has been spent in this way and $500,000 is the maxi- 
mum as estimated by Col. Goethals, in 1908. The area 
of the Gatun Lake crosses into the Republic of Pana- 
ma on the West side of the canal, and the private 
property so condemned as well as in the Canal Zone 
is valued by a joint commission of Panamans and 
Americans. 

Columbus had been honored by naming Colon and 
Cristobal for him at the Atlantic entrance of the canal, 
and an Executive order on April 30, 1909, honored 
the discoverer of the Pacific by changing the name of 
the Pacific terminal from La Boca to Balboa. It is 
at Balboa that the permanent machine shops, dry 
docks, yards, wharves, warehouses, and general equip- 
ment to cost $20,000,000 will be located. Col. Goeth- 
als' conception of making the canal adequate for all 
the needs of shipping has a military utility that is not 
sufficiently recognized. By making it possible for 
vessels to coal at the canal, secure fresh provisions, get 
repairs made and expeditiously handle cargoes, the 
United States makes it unnecessary for any foreign 
power to establish a coaling station and similar facili- 

146 




Photos, 1, Harris & Eiving, Washington, D. C. ; 2, if, 5, Clinedinst, 
Washington, D. C; 3, Pictorial News Assn. 

I. LiEUT.-CoL. H. F. Hodges. 2. H. H. Rousseau, U. S. N. 
3. S. B. Williamson with President Taft. 4. Lieut.-Col. 
D. D. Gaillard. 5. LiEUT.-CoL. William L. Sibert. 



GOETHALS 

ties in this hemisphere, on the pretext of caring for 
its merchant marine. With ice plant, cold storage, 
bakery and other subsistence and commissary facili- 
ties already established, it will be easy for the govern- 
ment to institute the practices mentioned at Balboa 
coincidental with the opening of the canal. Col. Goeth- 
als has been working toward that end for years and 
the bill passed in the 1912 Congress approves his ideas. 

In 1909, Col. Goethals seems to have had the idea 
of making the Canal Zone habitable, for an extensive 
scheme of road-making was begun, and $75,000 was 
spent in a survey of the Canal Zone. The survey 
never was finished, and since then Col. Goethals 
changed his views, in favor of making the Canal Zone 
a military reservation, the part not in use to be left 
to the jungle and only canal employees allowed, with- 
out special permission, in the ten-mile limits. Critics 
in the United States displayed their ignorance by pro- 
testing that the land in the Canal Zone should be 
opened to settlement, like our western lands. The 
canal occupies 96 square miles of the 436 in the Canal 
Zone and "j^ square miles are privately owned. There 
is very little of what is left that Americans would 
occupy. It is in the main mountainous, and without 
a system of roads that would be prohibitive in cost, 
would not be accessible in the rainy season. Col. 
Goethals disposes of the idea of settlement in his usual 
terse way when he says : " The inducements offered 
by farm lands in the Canal Zone are not likely to at- 
tract Americans. Other occupants are not desirable." 

The Americans have made an investment at Panama 
147 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

which should be guarded from every possible danger. 
In times of war everybody in the Canal Zone, of 
course, would be subjected to scrutiny and possibly 
to ejection. It will, therefore, save trouble and ex- 
pense to begin, right at the start, to treat it as a mili- 
tary reservation is treated in the United States. The 
expense of sanitation and civil government would be 
too great to make settlement profitable. 

Work on the fortifications was begun in 191 1, on 
Flamenco Island, three miles out in the bay at the 
Pacific entrance, and on Toro Point at the Atlantic 
entrance. The estimate for their cost, as fixed by the 
officers appointed to design them, is $12,475,328, and 
Congress, in March, 191 1, appropriated $3,000,000 of 
that amount. The latest and largest disappearing rifles 
will be installed after the concrete work is finished. 
The locks at the Pacific end are nearly ten miles from 
the fortifications, which insures them against bombard- 
ment by an enemy's ships, and the Atlantic locks are 
seven miles from the fortifications. Some form of 
defense from airships must be worked out. 

It would be just as logical to say that New York 
should remove its traffic policemen from Thirty-fourth 
Street and Broadway, as to argue that the United 
States should not fortify the canal. The policemen 
are there to aid traffic by enforcing the rules which 
make order possible, and fortifications are necessary 
at Panama to insure that no nation, whether fighting 
the United States or some other nation, shall disable 
a world transit route. Neutrality would be a myth 
without a strong police power at Panama. It is to 

148 



GOETHALS 

the interest of every nation that the canal be so policed 
and fortified that commerce could not be disrupted 
through the deliberate, or unintentional, actions of 
belligerent nations. Warships of all nations may pass 
through the canal, but if of nations engaged in war, 
they cannot linger at either end of the canal after or 
before passage. 

When the canal is completed, the beautiful towns 
along the route will be abandoned. Gorgona, Bas 
Obispo, Las Cascadas, Empire, Culebra, and Paraiso 
will be razed. A permanent camp for the Army will 
be located on the East side of the canal, across the Cut 
from the town of Culebra. Marines have been in the 
Canal Zone since 1904, and in 191 1 the Tenth Infantry 
was added to the permanent garrison, which will be 
further augmented by several regiments. The sol- 
diers will police the Canal Zone after construction 
work is finished. Balboa and Cristobal will be the 
principal cities, though at Gatun and Pedro Miguel 
forces to operate the locks will be housed. 

President Taft signed, on August 24, 1912, a bill 
for the permanent government and operation of the 
canal. Col. Goethals' ideas were followed almost to 
the letter in drawing this bill. The President is au- 
thorized, as soon as the canal is sufficiently near com- 
pletion, to abolish the present Commission and to 
appoint a Governor, for a term of four years, at a sal- 
ary of $10,000 per annum. In time of war, the Presi- 
dent may substitute an Army officer for this Governor. 
Salaries and wages are not to be more than twenty- 
five per cent greater than in the United States, and 

149 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

many of the perquisites now enjoyed by the employees 
are to be eliminated. The Canal Zone will be open to 
only such persons as the Governor may admit ; Ameri- 
can coast-wise ships are exempted from paying tolls 
for passage; foreign-built ships owned by Americans 
may register under the American flag ; ships owned by 
railroads cannot pass through the canal ; the Interstate 
Commerce Commission is given power to determine 
questions of competition; and the present judiciary 
system is continued with right of appeal to the Fed- 
eral courts in the United States. In addition, the gov- 
ernment may sell ships supplies and coal and provide 
facilities for repairing vessels at the canal terminals. 

At the close of the fiscal year ended June 30, 191 2, 
Col. Goethals could look forward to one year more of 
the arduous labor and heavy responsibihty he has 
borne, before the big job would be in the clear. In- 
voicing conditions at that date, we find that the great 
Gatun dam was more than 90 per cent completed ; the 
concrete work in the locks and spillway was about 90 
per cent completed ; the Culebra cut was approximately 
90 per cent completed; the relocated Panama Rail- 
road was finished, and the work of establishing per- 
manent shipping facilities at Balboa and Cristobal was 
under way. 

Owing to fresh slides in the Culebra cut, and to 
changes in plans in the Pacific division, a new estimate 
of the total excavation for the completed canal and 
accessory plant became necessary at the beginning of 
the last complete fiscal year of canal construction — 
July I, 19 1 2, to June 30, 191 3. The revised estimate 

150 



GOETHALS 

then placed the excavation at 212,227,000 cubic yards, 
of which amount 175,901,052 cubic yards had been 
removed at the end of July, 19 12, leaving to be exca- 
vated for the completed canal, 36,325,948 cubic yards. 
The latest estimate, however, raises the total excava- 
tion to 221,000,000 yards. The canal organization 
cannot remove the uncompleted portion before the first 
ship is scheduled to pass through the canal, in Septem- 
ber, 1 91 3, but of the 47,000,000 yards left, more than 
8,000,000 yards are to be excavated outside of the 
canal proper, or in the sites for the coaling station, 
dry docks and terminal at Balboa, so that the actual 
canal channel substantially will be finished before the 
passage of the first ship. 

The Atlantic division in July, 19 12, lacked 8,009,- 
778 yards of completion; the Central division, includ- 
ing the Culebra cut, lacked 10,678,953 yards; and the 
Pacific division, 17,637,217 yards — a grand total for 
the whole canal of 36,325,948. The ancient trouble, 
slides, prevented the completion of the Culebra cut in 
1912. 

During the early part of 19 12, the Gatun Lake was 
stationary at about 17 feet, but with the beginning 
of the rainy season in May it began to rise, and the 
plan was to hold the lake, by use of the spillway, at 
a head of water of 50 feet until the beginning of the 
rainy season in 19 13, when it will be allowed to raise 
to 80 feet, and this would back the water up, by Sep- 
tember, 1 91 3, to a depth through the Culebra cut to 
permit the passage of some kind of a ship. The ulti- 
mate level of the lake will be 85 feet. 

151 



THE AMERICANS IN PANADSA 

There have been many estimates of Col. Goethals 
in the magazines and newspapers and in books. They 
all pay tribute to him as an administrator without a 
superior. Some writers have been so impressed by 
the man that they rate him a larger fact than the canal 
itself. Yet it is possible to gauge the man without 
overshooting the mark in that fashion. Congress 
gave him a credit of $290,000,000 and allowed his 
estimates of annual expenditures. He has missed the 
worries of a private contractor who has to consider 
the financial ways and means of his operations, and 
besides, the dissatisfaction of employees have been 
stifled by an unparalleled standard of pay and by 
gratuities that make nearly every position in the Canal 
Zone in the nature of a sinecure. Contentedness has 
been bought by pouring millions of dollars into creat- 
ing not merely comfortable, but even luxurious con- 
ditions of living for the employees. 

No private enterprise could succeed for a moment 
on such a basis. On its economic side, the canal 
proves nothing because any competent organization 
could bring things to pass if only enough money is 
forthcoming, as has been the case under the govern- 
ment in Panama. An admirable job has been done in 
Panama, but it has not been economically done, in the 
usual understanding of that word. Nobody set out to 
do it economically. Every leak has been plastered 
with a dollar. At no point does the canal project 
affect a complete economic operation. Money is being 
spent but it is not being made. The work is being 
done without regard to its ever paying. 

152 



GOETHALS 

Socialists, therefore, should be cautious in holding 
up the canal as an example of their theories in suc- 
cessful practice. Industrial life, even under Socialism, 
would have to do what the canal project has not done 
and is not required to do, namely, justify itself as a 
business proposition. The canal ultimately may do 
this, but it will not be because it was designed and con- 
structed with that imperative end in view. Even the 
commissary and subsistence operations that usually 
evoke strong approval as evidences of governmental 
efficiency, possess no socialistic and slight communal 
aspects. The government has made them pay by 
arbitrarily exacting a profit under noncompetitive con- 
ditions. None of the forces of industrial life that tend 
to make for favorable or unfavorable economic con- 
ditions, can operate in a government job which se- 
cures its capital, not because of the intrinsic merit of 
the enterprise, but through the gratuitous function of 
taxation. 

If we turn to the purely technical side of the project, 
unquestionably the highest praise is due to the Army 
engineers. On its engineering side, the canal proves 
that the government does not have to go outside its 
own forces to find the highest order of ability. The 
American people never again will clamor for private 
initiative and execution of any enterprise they may 
want accomplished. 

Col. Goethals is indeed a great administrator. Even 
if the employees have had soft conditions of employ- 
ment, it is an achievement to impress 35,000 men with 
a faith both in your capacity as an engineer and your 

153 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

sense of justice. This writer knows of no higher 
tribute that can be paid to him than the statement that 
in five months in the Canal Zone he never heard any- 
one speak slurringly of the Chief Engineer. Col. 
Goethals has been no respecter of persons. In 1912, 
two officials drawing $300 a month salary each, were 
discharged as summarily as any common laborer 
would have been, for breaches of the rules. It has 
been his practice to give his Sunday mornings to hear- 
ing grievances from employees, and those without 
just grounds of complaint are sent about their business 
peremptorily, while those who have been wronged are 
given justice, no matter how high the official who is 
in error. The man's admirable poise is shown in the 
just way he has exercised the absolute power of a 
Czar, for when he sets his pen to paper a new law is 
made in the Canal Zone. Those who cannot square 
their conduct with his fiat, go out on the next steamer, 
whether an individual or a labor union en masse. 

As Admiral Schley said of the controversy over the 
battle of Santiago, " there is honor enough for us all," 
so with regard to the Panama Canal. Col. Goethals, 
as the star of the last six years, gets the curtain calls, 
but even if we assign Messrs. Stevens and Wallace 
to the roles of villains, they, too, did their parts well. 
And the whole company of Americans, composing the 
chorus or supernumeraries, have contributed vitally 
to the success of the play. After all, it is no one 
man, but the Spirit of Americanism, indomitable and 
triumphant, that we admire in Panama. Future gen- 
erations will see in Col. Goethals the outward head 

154 



GOETHALS 

of this national characteristic, but the final verdict of 
approval will be much broader and more just than 
that, even to the admission that all praise belongs to 
the Americans in Panama. 



iSS 



Q.<U-li.-U 




<I->«J<ZI — V 



0»u^ 
uiZIU 



156 



CHAPTER XIV 

LOCKS AND DAMS 

AN elevator system for ships is being installed at 
Panama at a cost of $58,000,000. These ele- 
vators, known as locks, will raise ships to and lower 
them from the great artificial, inland lake which is 
85 feet above sea-level. 

In a sea-level canal, such as Suez, ships steam 
through a dug-out channel from one ocean to another. 
But at Panama, the plan adopted involves the lifting 
of ships over the Isthmus and the locks are the means 
whereby they are lifted. For this physical operation 
there are six locks on the Atlantic side and six on 
the Pacific side, at each end of the Gatun Lake. 

A ship arriving at Colon from New York, on its 
way to San Francisco, enters the sea-level channel in 
Limon Bay and steams for seven miles through the 
canal, which is 500 feet wide and 41 feet deep, to 
Gatun. Here its way is barred by a massive pile of 
masonry with impressive steel gates and towering 85 
feet above the ship is the surface of the Gatun Lake. 
To the West of the ship runs the man-made mountain, 
the Gatun dam, which holds the lake in bounds. The 
problem is to lift the ship to this lake. 

As if by magic, the gates swing open and an electric 
locomotive, which has run out on a guide wall and 
fastened to the ship, tows it into the first lock. The 

157 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

gates swing together and the ship is imprisoned in a 
chamber i,ooo feet long and no feet wide and built 
of concrete. In a moment the water in this chamber 
begins to rise, being supplied through holes in the 
bottom, and the ship rises with the water. 

Fifteen minutes after entering the lock, the ship 
has risen with the water for 2y^ feet. If the full 
capacity for filling the lock should be used the ship 
would rise that height in eight minutes. Another set 
of gates swing open in front of the ship, and the loco- 
motives tow it into the second lock, a concrete cham- 
ber of the same dimensions. The gates having closed 
behind, this chamber begins filling with water until the 
ship is raised again for 2y^ feet. A third set of gates 
open and the ship is towed into the final lock where 
the operation is repeated with a raise of 30 feet, or a 
total lift for the three locks of 85 feet. When the 
gates in front swing open the ship steams out into the 
Gatun Lake. The time spent in climbing 85 feet was 
an hour and a half. 

For sixteen miles through this lake the ship steams 
in a channel 1,000 feet wide; for four miles in a chan- 
nel 800 feet wide, and for three miles in a channel 
500 feet wide, or twenty-three miles in all. Then it 
enters the famous Culebra cut, which is 300 feet wide 
through the continental mountain divide, and nine 
miles long. At the end of the Cut is the Pedro Miguel 
lock, thirty-two miles from Gatun. 

After entering this lock, which essentially is the 
same as the ones on the Atlantic side, the ship goes 
through the reverse of the process at Gatun. The 

158 



LOCKS AND DAMS 

water in the concrete chamber begins falling, taking 
the ship down with it. When it has fallen 30 feet the 
gates in front open and the ship goes out into another 
artificial lake, a mile and a half long, at the end of 
which are the Miraflores locks. These two locks lower 
the ship 2y^ feet each, or a total for the three locks 
of 85 feet, which was the height the ship was raised 
on the other side. The ship then steams through a 
sea-level channel for seven miles to the Pacific, having 
made the whole journey from deep water in the At- 
lantic to deep water in the Pacific, fifty miles, in ten 
hours. 

Thus it will be seen that the Atlantic and Pacific 
oceans are still separated by thirty-two miles of land 
at Panama, on which is a fresh-water lake 85 feet 
above sea-level. The locks simply are so many stair- 
steps up to and down from this lake. At both ends 
the locks are built in pairs, or twins, so that ships 
going in opposite directions may pass through them 
simultaneously. A wall 60 feet thick separates the 
locks, and if one set should become disabled, the ad- 
joining set still would be available for passage. The 
time required for a ship to mount the three locks on 
one side and descend the three locks on the other side 
is three hours. 

On the Atlantic side, the locks at Gatun are con- 
nected and constitute one solid piece of masonry. On 
the Pacific side the lock at Pedro Miguel is separated 
from two locks at Miraflores by a small lake a mile 
and a half long. This lake, like the great Gatun Lake, 
is formed by damming rivers. A dam at the Pedro 

159 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Miguel lock, which is the first lock encountered going 
toward the Pacific, holds the waters of Gatun Lake 
from spilling down the Pacific slope. 

Chief Engineer Stevens began the excavations in 
the Gatun and Pedro Miguel lock sites in 1906, shortly- 
after the decision was made for a lock-type canal, but 
most of the excavation and all of the concrete lay- 
ing has been done under Col. Goethals. It was neces- 
sary to remove about 5,000,000 cubic yards of rock 
and earth from the site of the three locks at Gatun 
to prepare a foundation for the tremendously heavy 
structure. Careful borings had been made to ascertain 
if a suitable foundation could be found there. 

On August 24, 1909, the first concrete was laid in 
the Gatun lock site. Rock of a desirable kind for use 
in making the concrete, as well as sand, could not be 
found in the Canal Zone, and experiments along the 
coast showed that at Porto Bello, twenty miles East of 
Colon, good rock could be quarried, and sand was dis- 
covered in suitable quantities and quality at Nombre 
de Dios, forty miles East of Colon. These two places 
are the oldest on the Isthmus, Columbus having been 
there in 1502. 

Rock crushing began at Porto Bello on March 2, 
1909. If all the rock and sand removed from Porto 
Bello and Nombre de Dios was placed in barges 
separated by the usual distances in a tow, they would 
reach from Colon to New Orleans, or 1,500 miles. 
This material was towed to Colon and thence through 
the old French canal to Gatun. Here it was unloaded 

160 



LOCKS AND DAMS 

by machinery and stored conveniently for the concrete 
mixing plant. 

All the machinery and equipment for building the 
locks was designed on a scale commensurate with the 
unprecedented size of the structures. Eight giant 
mixers were fed with rock, sand, and cement by cars 
operated by electricity, the finished product coming 
from each of the mixers at the rate of 64 cubic feet 
for each complete operation. 

To get the concrete into place, four cableways, 
suspended across the lock site on towers 85 feet high, 
were installed. Electrically operated cars brought the 
concrete to these towers where great buckets were 
filled. These buckets then were run up to the cables, 
and out on the cables to a given point, where they 
were lowered and the concrete dumped into the proper 
position. 

After the floors of the locks had been laid, the walls 
were built in the usual manner of erecting steel forms, 
which were removed when the concrete had hardened. 
At Gatun the walls of the locks were built in sections 
36 feet long, and joined together, on the idea that such 
construction would have less tendency to settle and 
crack than if it was built in one solid, continuous wall. 
This may be appreciated when it is understood that 
at Gatun the locks form a concrete wall about 3,500 
feet long, or considerably more than half a mile. The 
usable part of each lock is 1,000 feet long and there 
are three in flight. The twin locks have an outside 
wall 52 feet wide, an inside measurement no feet 
wide, a separating wall 60 feet wide, another inside 

161 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

measurement of no feet, and a final outside wall 52 
feet wide, or a total width for both locks lying side 
by side, from outer wall to outer wall, of 384 feet. 

In each of the outside walls and in the center wall 
tunnels 18 feet in diameter were constructed for use 
in filling and emptying the locks with water during 
the processes of raising and lowering ships. Smaller 
tunnels run out from these main longitudinal tunnels, 
under the floors of the locks with openings through 
which the water is turned into or withdrawn from the 
lock chambers by gravitation. Valves operated by 
electricity regulate the flow of the water. The water 
for operating the locks starts from the Gatun Lake 
and flows through the tunnels downgrade, through 
the three locks, until it finally is used in the lowest 
lock when it is spilled into the sea-level channel. 

The first concrete for the Pacific side locks was 
laid at Pedro Miguel on September i, 1909, seven 
days after the beginning of operations at Gatun. It 
was in February, 1910, that concrete work was 
started in the two locks at Miraflores, which, in 1912, 
were the most backward feature of canal construction. 
For all twelve locks, 4,302,563 cubic yards of con- 
crete is required. Three years after beginning the 
concrete work, or in August, 19 12, the locks were 
more than 90 per cent completed, the one at Pedro 
Miguel being the nearest done with 98 per cent of 
the estimated concrete in place. The three locks at 
Gatun then had about 95 per cent in place and the two 
at Miraflores about 80 per cent. 

For the three locks at Gatun, 2,000,000 cubic yards 
162 



LOCKS AND DAMS 

of concrete was required; for the one lock at Pedro 
Miguel, 889,827 cubic yards; and for the two locks 
at Miraflores, 1,412,736 cubic yards. A contract was 
awarded the Atlas Portland Cement Co. for 4,500,000 
barrels of cement, with the privilege of increasing this 
order by 15 per cent, and in 19 12 another 1,000,000 
barrels were bought to complete the canal. The 
stability of the locks depends upon the quality of 
cement used, hence the Government inspectors have 
watched this factor jealously. 

Rock for the Pacific locks has been obtained at a 
quarry opened in Ancon hill, at the Pacific entrance 
of the canal. The sand has been brought from 
Chame, about 23 miles up the coast from Panama. 
The Pacific division has been at much less expense 
in obtaining materials than the Atlantic division, ac- 
counting for the difference in the cost of construc- 
tion in the two divisions. The Pacific division was at 
one disadvantage in that the three locks were not to- 
gether, as on the Atlantic side, necessitating prac- 
tically two separate jobs. The amount of excavation 
at Pedro Miguel to secure a foundation was 770,000 
cubic yards and at Miraflores, 2,247,600 cubic yards, 
a total for the three locks of 3,017,600 yards, which 
is nearly 2,000,000 yards less than had to be excavated 
in the site of the three Atlantic locks. 

All twelve locks were half done as regards the 
concrete work, about May i, 191 1. The best month's 
record for laying concrete was made in April, 1912, 
in the Pacific division, when 97,735 cubic yards were 
laid. The concrete is all of reenforced construc- 

163 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

tion, and an unusual feature has been the placing of 
rocks weighing many tons throughout the walls. The 
lock walls at Pedro Miguel were not built in sections 
as at Gatun, but as one solid piece of masonry more 
than i,ooo feet long. At Miraflores the two locks 
were built in sections, as at Gatun. 

The gates for the locks were contracted for, in 
1910, to cost $5,374,474.82. Their construction and 
erection are by the McClintic-Marshall Construction 
Company, of Pittsburgh, under the inspection of the 
Commission. This concern, in 191 2, had more than 
1,000 men at work and were rushing the construction 
to meet the dates agreed upon for their completion. 
Under the contract this company had until January i, 
1 9 14, to finish the work, but estimated that this time 
could be beaten by six months. The date for finishing 
the gates at Pedro Miguel lock was May i, 191 2, but 
the contractor was behind on this program; at Gatun 
the gates were to be erected by February i, 1913; and 
at Miraflores by June i, 1913. Work was rushed on 
the gates at the lake end of the Gatun locks, in the 
summer of 19 12, to hold out the rising water. On 
July I, 1 91 2, out of a total of 58,000 tons of steel 
required in all the gates, 19,631 tons had been erected, 
or 34 per cent, leaving to be erected before Septem- 
ber, 191 3, when the first ship is scheduled to go 
through, 38,369 tons. 

There are 46 gates in all twelve locks, with two 
leaves to the gate, or 92 leaves. The gates are from 
47 to 79 feet high, are 7 feet thick, and weigh from 
300 to 600 tons each leaf. They are constructed with 

164 



LOCKS AND DAMS 

interior cells, which at the bottom will be air cham- 
bers to assist in their manipulation, and at the top, 
water chambers, to increase their weight as the water 
rises in the locks. The sheathing is with steel plates 
riveted on heavy girders. These gates will be opened 
and shut, to permit the entrance or egress of ships, 
by electrical apparatus. 

As 95 per cent of the vessels in the world are less 
than 600 feet long, it would be a great waste of 
water and time to use the full 1,000- foot lock in each 
passage. So intermediate gates are being constructed 
which will permit the use of only 400 or 600 feet as 
the particular vessel may require. There are recesses 
in the lock walls which allow the gates to be opened 
and still leave a clear width of no feet. At the en- 
trance of the locks, a chain, with links three inches 
in diameter, stretches from one side to the other to 
stop vessels which might not obey the signals. In 
case the first gates should be rammed and broken, a 
second set of gates especially provided for emergencies 
have been constructed behind the first set. If both 
sets of gates should be demolished, the water would 
rush through with a fearful velocity, but provision 
has been made against this contingency by having 
in readiness emergency dams, which would be swung 
out over the lock and forced down through the in- 
rushing water. This dam, built of steel, is open at 
the bottom and steel plates are then shoved down it, 
gradually closing the openings until the flow is 
stopped. A floating caisson would then be placed in 
position and sunk, completely shutting out water from 

165 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

the lock, the emergency dam would be raised, and 
repairs begun. 

It is to prevent such accidents that the plan of 
towing vessels through the locks with electric loco- 
motives was adopted, as then no misunderstanding 
of signals from the captain to the engineer of a ship 
could result. The tracks for these locomotives are on 
each side wall of the locks, and two will fasten to the 
rear and two to the front of a ship to effect a passage. 
If all twelve locks were joined end to end they would 
make a canyon nearly three miles long, no feet wide 
and 80 feet deep. 

The Gatun Dam 

The natural topography of the Isthmus at Panama 
permitted the Chagres River to escape into the Carib- 
bean Sea through a break in the mountains at Gatun. 
Engineers logically considered that this was the point 
at which a dam should be thrown across the Chagres 
River. Two valleys were formed at Gatun by a hill 
which rose in the center to an elevation of no feet, 
and the dam that was designed runs from the Gatun 
locks to this hill and from this hill to the mountains, 
a total distance of 7,500 feet, or a mile and a half. 

As the Chagres River every year discharges enough 
water to fill the lake, some means of disposing of the 
surplus water had to be provided. The plan adopted 
called for a spillway to be constructed in this hill, 
about third-way in the dam site. This spillway is of 
concrete, requiring 225,000 cubic yards to complete. 

166 



LOCKS AND DAMS 

On July I, 191 2, it was more than 90 per cent com- 
pleted. 

The floor of the spillway is 10 feet above sea-level, 
and 300 feet wide through the hill, which involved 
excavation through rock for a depth of 100 feet at the 
highest point of the hill. A concrete dam was built 
on this floor to a height of 69 feet above sea-level 
and in shape like a semicircle. On top of the concrete 
dam, piers were built with an arrangement for steel 
gates. These steel gates will be electrically operated 
and regulate the flow of water out of the lake. As 
much as 140,000 cubic feet of water per second may 
escape through the spillway when the gates are open. 

There will not be a complete loss of this water, as 
on the east side of the spillway a power plant of 
the hydro-electric type will be operated. A drop of 
75 feet by the water will operate turbine engines 
which in turn will operate the electric machinery that 
will generate all the power and illuminating current 
needed from one end of the canal to the other. But 
an additional power plant will be maintained at Mira- 
flores for emergencies. The power to operate the lock 
gates will come from the spillway plant. 

The Gatun dam is so stupendous that it almost 
seems to be a continuation of the hills that enclose 
the lake. It in fact does complete the natural moun- 
tain chains that form the barriers of the Chagres 
River. It is 105 feet high, or 20 feet above the or- 
dinary level of the lake at 85 feet elevation. The 
plan of construction has been to build parallel mounds, 
for the mile and a half, 1,200 feet apart. Between 

167 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

these mounds, built of rock and earth, a core for the 
dam has been constructed by pumping mud and sand 
from the bed of the Chagres River. About 20 per 
cent of the material pumped is solid matter, and when 
it has deposited the water is pumped off. This op- 
eration has been repeated until an impervious heart 
has been made in the dam. Even if water from the 
lake penetrated the outside walls of rock and earth, 
it would find this core water-tight. The dam is nearly 
half a mile thick at the base, 398 feet thick where 
the water surface strikes it at 85 feet, and is 100 feet 
wide at the top. The outer coverings of rock and 
earth on the dam close over the hydraulic core at the 
crest. For about 500 feet the dam will be subjected 
to the full pressure of 85 feet of water, at other points 
to a less severe pressure. 

Engineers consider the dam excessively safe and 
the layman has no difficulty in appreciating its 
strength. This feature was subjected to a storm of 
criticism throughout the early days of the canal be- 
cause some engineers believed the earth would not 
support so heavy a structure, but the present Chief 
Engineer never has doubted its stability. About half 
of the material required, 21,994,111 cubic yards, has 
been brought from the Culebra cut. On July i, 1912, 
the dam was more than 90 per cent completed, leaving 
less than 10 per cent to be done before the passage 
of the first ship. 

On the Pacific side, the first dam encountered is at 
Pedro Miguel and serves to hold the waters of Gatun 
Lake at its southern end. It is 1,400 feet long and 

168 



LOCKS AND DAMS 

forty feet wide at the top. The maximum height 
of the water against this dam will be 40 feet. The 
plan of construction is much the same as at Gatun, 
but only about 1,000,000 cubic yards will be required. 

After a ship is lowered 30 feet by the Pedro Miguel 
lock, it finds itself in an artificial lake a mile and a 
half long. This lake is formed by two dams, the 
one to the west being 2,300 feet long, and 40 feet 
wide at the top, holding a maximum head of water 
of 40 feet. It is constructed with a hydraulic core like 
the Gatun dam. On the east a concrete dam 500 feet 
long, and provided with a spillway, as at Gatun, and 
capable of discharging 7,500 cubic feet of water per 
second, will hold the small lake in control. The Cocoli 
River is the principal feeder of this lake. 

Records kept by the French, and by the Americans 
since 1904, show conclusively that enough water 
always will be available to keep the Gatun Lake and 
the tiny Miraflores Lake adequately supplied with 
water. No trouble at all can develop during the eight 
months of rainy season, and in the dry season of four 
months enough water will have been stored in the 
lake by means of the regulating works in the Gatun 
dam spillway to allow for all losses through evapora- 
tion, seepage, power consumption, and loss through the 
locks. During the wet season the lake will be raised 
from elevation 85 for two feet, to elevation 87, over 
an area of 164 square miles. This water could be 
used until the lake falls to about 82 feet, or five feet 
over the 164 square miles. In an average dry season 
this would permit 58 complete transits of the canal 

169 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

every 24 hours, if the full 1,000- foot capacity of the 
locks is used, or more than the period would allow 
if vessels followed at intervals of one hour. 

The Gatun Lake is backed up among the hills by 
the dam until it reaches a width of more than twenty 
miles at the widest point, and a length between Gatun 
and Pedro Miguel of thirty-two miles. It will be 
broken by many small islands, and stretches of high 
lands, and is narrowest in the Culebra cut where for 
nine miles the width is 300 feet. From Gatun to the 
entrance of the Cut, a distance of twenty-three miles, 
lighthouses are stationed at commanding points to 
guide ships at night. The channel throughout is at 
an average depth of 45 feet. In order to raise the 
relocated Panama Railroad above the level of the 
lake it was necessary to make fills to the extent of 
16,425,292 cubic yards. 

The Navy Department has selected a site near San 
Pablo, about twenty miles inland from the Atlantic, 
and on the East side of Gatun Lake, for a high 
power wireless station. It is to be at an elevation 
of no feet above the level of the lake and capable 
of sending a message for 3,000 miles, to Washing- 
ton, D. C., or to a similar station on the California 
coast. Smaller stations will be maintained at Colon 
and Balboa in the Canal Zone, and at Porto Bello. 
The Republic of Panama and private companies will 
not operate stations in competition with the American 
government. 

If the great Gatun dam should break, the water in 
the lake might sweep devastatingly over the city of 

170 



LOCKS AND DAMS 

Colon, seven miles away, or pass through the old bed 
of the Chagres River harmlessly into the Caribbean 
Sea. While the pressure on the dam will be terrific, 
no such catastrophe is considered probable. 



171 



CHAPTER XV 

THE CULEBRA CUT 

POPULAR interest always has centered chiefly in 
the excavation phase of canal construction, los- 
ing sight of the fact that the locks, dams, and break- 
waters call for an expenditure of $85,643,000. The 
Culebra cut has been exploited more than any other 
feature of the canal, yet it was estimated to cost 
$80,481,000, or five million dollars less than the fea- 
tures just enumerated. Even the dredging of fifteen 
miles of sea-level channel has received little publicity, 
and this was to cost no less than $30,906,000. 

The physical aspects of the dry excavation doubt- 
less account for this singling out of one feature by 
the public mind. However stupendous the laying of 
concrete might be in the locks, or the sucking up of 
mud by the dredges, they are not as impressive as cut- 
ting through a mountain chain. They are prosaic 
operations compared with the picturesque attempt to 
change geological conditions. In the Culebra cut, 
Man was wrestling with Nature, whereas, in lock- 
building, he merely is playing the role of mason. 

One finds in government work that the chief aim 
seems to be to plant two employees where only one 
worked before, and the canal organization is the least 
overworked set of employees in the world, but in the 
excavation phase of the government work the organ- 

172 




P^ 



U 



THE CULEBRA CUT 

ization has attained as great efficiency as any private 
contractor could have attained, under the conditions 
adopted in the Canal Zone. World records for steam 
shovel performances have been broken by government 
employees in Panama under adverse circumstances. 

The Culebra cut is nine miles long with a curve for 
nearly every mile. At these curves, the cut is wid- 
ened to permit the ships to pass easily. Always the 
chief problem has been one of transportation, or how 
to keep empty cars in front of the steam shovels con- 
stantly, in a canyon only three hundred feet wide. 
In a working day of eight hours it has been found 
possible to keep the steam shovels working only about 
six hours, because of this circumscribed field of op- 
erations. 

Naturally the 75 miles of track in the Culebra cut 
must be shifted constantly as the excavation work 
carries the levels down. This keeps the track shifters 
and hundreds of men at work day and night. During 
the maximum operations in the Cut, 6,000 men were 
employed in the daytime, while at night 400 men 
worked to keep the steam shovels in repair, to re- 
plenish their coal bins, blast more material for the 
shovels, and otherwise to get the Cut in shape for the 
next day's activities. 

About 100,000,000 cubic yards were to be removed 
to complete this part of the canal, or practically half 
the total excavation. On July i, 1912, the beginning 
of the last year of work, there were 7,399,615 yards 
left to be removed, which would have been out by 
January i, 191 3, at the rate of excavation, if it had 

173 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

not been for the slides. To this had to be added 
6,000,000 yards from that source, or more than 
14,000,000 yards to be removed in order to get the Cut 
in shape for the passage of the first ship. It was de- 
cided then to keep the 38 steam shovels at work and 
operations at full blast until July, 191 3. 

For the whole length of the Cut, the average depth 
from the surface to the proposed bottom of the canal 
was about 120 feet, the highest point on the center 
line of the canal being at Culebra between Gold and 
Contractor's hills where excavation has gone down 
272 feet. After the soil had been removed for a 
short depth, solid rock was struck and to January i, 
1913, 54,504,150 pounds of dynamite were used in 
blasting, or the staggering total of 27,252 tons. The 
lay mind thinks of a pound of dynamite as impres- 
sive, but its use in the canal work has been bewilder- 
ingly heavy. 

The following table shows the amount of dynamite 
used for the nine years of American operations: 

1904 and 1905 500,000 lbs. 

1906 1,400,000 

1907 5,087,000 

1908 6,822,000 

1909 8,270,000 

1910 10,403,000 

1911 9,501,850 

1912 8,533,000 

1913 3,986,500 

174 



THE CULEBRA CUT 

Most of the explosive has been used in the Culebra 
cut. It is estimated that a pound of dynamite will 
break up 2.14 cubic yards of rock and earth, and as 
much as 26 tons has been set off in one blast in the 
canal. Stringent rules have prevailed to prevent ac- 
cidents, and while deaths from this cause have run 
into the hundreds the handling of this amount of 
dynamite has been distinguished for the small number 
of fatalities. In September, 1908, a steam shovel dug 
up a bushel of dynamite left by the French in 1887, 
but it had lost its potency. The largest single ship- 
ment of dynamite to Panama was 846 tons received 
on June 2y, 191 1, without an accident in loading or 
unloading from the steamer. 

All through the day drills, operated by compressed 
air, are boring into the rock in the Cut for 24 feet. 
A small charge of powder is set off at the bottom 
of these holes to enlarge them for the real charge 
of as much as 200 pounds. Then after the men have 
quit for the noon hour, or after ^y^ o'clock in the 
afternoon, the charges are set off by electric current. 
It sounds like the steady booming of artillery in the 
Cut. Many persons have been killed by being struck 
by rocks hurled long distances in these blasts. The 
next morning the steam shovels find plenty of food 
for their hungry jaws, which bite off four or five 
cubic yards at a dip, swing around and drop the six 
or seven tons upon the cars. Frequently they lift 
rocks so heavy that the cars are broken. 

From 150 to 175 trains a day loaded with ex- 
cavated materials leave the Culebra cut for the dumps. 

175 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

A great deal has gone to build the mighty Gatun dam ; 
much has been used in reclaiming nearly 400 acres 
from the ocean at Balboa, the Pacific terminal; the 
new Panama Railroad has required millions of yards 
in making fills; and the breakwater at Balboa also 
has taken a considerable amount. What could not 
be usefully employed has been wasted on dumps. The 
average haul from the Cut has been twelve miles, but 
as much as thirty miles must be traveled by some of 
the dirt trains. Twenty flat cars constitute a train 
and one car can be loaded by a shovel in two and a 
half minutes, or with seven scoops ful of earth and 
rock. When the trains get to the dumps, an unloading 
plow is drawn by a steel cable over the flat cars, sweep- 
ing the material off the side which is open. Then 
spreaders are pushed over the track to shove the ma- 
terial to one side and down the embankment. Track 
shifters later come along and move the track over to 
the edge of the fill. Between 1,000,000 and 1,500,000 
yards have gone out of the Culebra cut every month, 
except one, since December, 1907. 

The employees are carried from the various towns 
to their work in the Cut, or on the locks and dams, by 
labor trains. The largest labor train in the world 
was operated out of Panama to Pedro Miguel until 
July, 191 2, when it was divided into two sections. 
These trains bring them to their homes, or the hotels, 
for the noon meal, consuming from ten minutes to 
half an hour in the journey. But as the rest period 
at noon is for two hours in the Canal Zone, ample 
time for eating is allowed. Tourists go through the 

176 



THE CULEBRA CUT 

♦ Cut on a special train that costs the government a 
great deal of money because of the disarrangement of 
dirt train schedules, every minute a shovel is kept 
idle thereby costing Uncle Sam a pretty penny and 
making the men swear because they may be sweating 
for a record day's work. 

In the month of March, 1909, more dirt was taken 
out than in the first twenty-two months of operations. 
The excavation in one month usually exceeds an 
amount equal to the Pyramid of Cheops, which is 
750 feet square and 451 feet high. The canal force 
of 1909-1910-1911 would have dug and finished the 
Suez Canal. March, 191 1, retains the record for the 
greatest excavation in the Cut, when 1,728,748 yards 
were removed, and this also is the record month for 
excavation for the whole canal, with a total removal 
of 3,327,443 yards. The average daily output of 
steam shovels rose from 500 yards in 1905, when only 
dirt was handled, to 1,500 yards in 191 1, when rock 
predominated. The cost in the Central division has 
ranged from 10 cents a yard to 91 cents a yard, with 
an average of 91 cents, from 1904 to 1909, and fell 
to 51 cents in 1911-12. 

Rains interfere with the excavation work in the Cut, 
reducing the output in the rainy season several hun- 
dred thousand yards a month. During the downpours, 
operations must be suspended, but the Cut has been 
dug at a slant on both sides of the mountain system, 
so that water is drained out of it by gravity, running 
out at both ends. Rivers which crossed the line of 

177 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

the canal have been diverted by digging new channels 
for them. 

The precise date when the canal was half dug, in 
the year 1910, cannot be fixed until the water is 
turned into the Cut and dredges begin handling the 
slides, after ships are using the canal, but on a basis 
of 221,000,000 yards excavation, it was half done 
about July i, 19 10. Slides make a revision of the 
estimates almost a monthly task for the Chief En- 
gineer. The Culebra cut was half finished about July 
I, 1910. 

Almost at the wind-up of operations the canal dig- 
gers made the highest records for excavation. On 
April II, 1912, forty- four steam shovels took out 
68,505 yards in the Cut, which is the record for one 
day in that division. Steam shovel No. 257 working 
at Gatun took out 5,554 yards in one day, the high- 
est record in the Canal Zone for one shovel, the date 
being May 2, 191 2, and in August, 19 12, the same 
shovel made a record by removing 86,844 yards in 
26 working days. 

That part of the Central division which is little 
mentioned, extends from the Gatun locks to the en- 
trance of the Culebra cut, about twenty-three miles. 
Only about 12,400,000 yards had to be excavated to 
complete this channel as it follows the Chagres River 
valley from about sea-level to Bohio, then the level 
rises until it reaches 48 feet above sea-level at the 
Cut. From Gatun to Obispo the Chagres River crossed 
the line of the canal twenty- three times. In the same 
distance the Chagres River has 26 tributaries, the more 

178 



THE CULEBRA CUT 

important ones being the Gatun and Trinidad rivers. 
All contribute to the great Gatun Lake. 

The slides, which have been accurately and inac- 
curately exploited in the press, represent the steep 
sides of the Culebra cut breaking off and falling down 
into the excavated part. Even where the Cut has been 
sunk through solid rock these slides occur, as the rock 
formations of the Isthmus are brittle and dissolve 
to dust after exposure to the atmosphere. An attempt 
was made to prevent slides by plastering the sides of 
the Cut with concrete, but the experiments were fu- 
tile. There are between fifteen and twenty important 
slides on both sides of the nine-mile Cut, the largest 
being on the West side of the canal near the town of 
Culebra, and embracing 63 acres. Around the towns 
of Culebra and Empire are many smaller slides that 
have given much trouble to the engineers. Steam 
shovels, locomotives, and flat cars have been caught 
in these slides, but, singularly, few lives have been 
lost. 

Sometimes the pressure on the sides of the canal 
operate to make the earth bulge up in the bottom of 
the Cut. Division Engineer Gaillard devised the plan 
of terracing the sides of the Cut to relieve this pres- 
sure with the result that much extraneous material 
has been prevented from sliding into the Cut. En- 
gineers who formerly stood stanchly for the sea-level 
type of canal, after seeing the slides of the present 
85-foot level lock type, are forced to admit that the 
attempt to sink a cut through the Isthmus for a sea- 
level channel would be attended by such prodigious 

179 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

earth movements, necessitating such an inestimable 
additional excavation, as to make it well nigh im- 
possible. For a sea-level canal the Culebra cut would 
have to go 85 feet deeper than in the present plan, 
which would require both a wider bottom and indefi- 
nitely wider surface opening, and then the slides would 
be immeasurably greater than at present. The best 
year's work in the Culebra cut was 16,586,891 yards. 
Slides first and last have added more than that amount 
to the total estimate of excavation for the division. 
Yet the increase in efficiency of the organization has 
enabled the workers to handle the extra amount within 
the time and cost estimated for taking out the original 
yardage. 

Three methods of excavation have been employed 
in digging the seven miles of sea-level channel on the 
Atlantic side and the eight miles of similar channel 
on the Pacific side. Steam shovels dug down on the 
Atlantic side to forty feet below sea-level, with great 
dikes to hold out the water, and dredges have done 
the remainder of the excavating. On the Pacific side, 
in addition to dredges and shovels the hydraulic 
method has been used. This method consists of play- 
ing a powerful stream of water on the earth and 
draining the water with the soil in a fluid state to a 
selected dump which has been boarded, the water being 
drained off when the mud has deposited. The Atlantic 
entrance required an excavation of 47,523,000 cubic 
yards and the Pacific entrance 58,287,000 yards. On 
July I, 1912, the former lacked 8,592,773 yards of 

180 



THE CULEBRA CUT 

completion and the latter 18,348,176 yards of comple- 
tion. Of the amount removed to July, 191 2, from 
both channels — 78,868,134 yards — steam shovels ex- 
cavated only 14,016,409 yards, but it was decided to 
remove most of the remaining material in the Pacific 
channel by steam shovels during the remainder of 
1 91 2 and in 191 3, to about July ist, when it is planned 
to take the great dredge Corozal through the channel, 
and locks up into the Culebra cut for the work of 
handling slides and silt after the water is turned into 
the Cut, in preparation for the passage of the first ship 
in September. 

The following table shows the excavation year by 
year in the Culebra cut, from May 4, 1904, to May 
4, 191 3, a period of nine years of American opera- 
tions : 



1904 to May 4, 1905 . 648,91 1 cu. yds. 

1906. 1,250,570 " 

1907. 4,861,895 " 
1908.11,285,217 " 

1909.13,955753 " 

1910.14,886,427 " 

1911.15,925,976 " 

1912.16,446,313 " 

1913.14,754,155 " 



•on^ 


iMay4, 




« 




« 




tc 




St 


« 


u 


it 


tt 


tt 


it 



9yrs. 94,015,217 cu. yds. 



By calendar years, the excavation in the Culebra 
cut is as follows, to September, 191 3: 

181 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

1904 243,472 cu. yds. 

1905 914,254 

1906 2,702,991 

1907 ' 9,177,130 

1908 13,912,453 

1909 14,557,034 

1910 15,398,599 

191 1 16,596,891 

1912 15,314,978 

1913 9,200,000 



99,015,217 cu. yds. 



For the whole canal, the excavation year by year 
since 1904 was as follows: 



May 4 to December 31, 1904 243,472 cu 

January I to " 1905 1,799,227 

1906 4,948,497 

1907 15,765,290 

1908 37,116,735 

1909 35,096,166 

1910 31,437,677 

191 1 31,603,899 

1912 29,258,852 

to August 31, 1913 13,653,564 



yds. 



205,933,379 cu. yds. 



The above table estimates the excavation by the 
time the first ship is scheduled to pass through the 

182 



THE CULEBRA CUT 

canal. Terminal works at Balboa requiring more than 
8,000,000 yards excavation, and finishing details of 
the canal channel proper, will bring the total excava- 
tion, by January i, 19 14, when the canal is expected 
to be in regular commercial use, to 221,000,000 cubic 
yards. 

It will be noted that the calendar year 1908 marks 
the highest record for annual excavation since the 
Americans began, overtopping the nearest year's rec- 
ord by more than two million yards. It also represents 
the amazing increase of two and a half times the out- 
put of the year 1907, just preceding it, the explanation 
of which is found in the fact that the long period of 
preparation has been passed in 1907 and the great 
canal organization, built up by Mr. Stevens, struck its 
stride and plunged dynamically at the natural ob- 
stacles. 

The year 1908 recorded the greatest annual exca- 
vation in the Atlantic division, the year 1909 the maxi- 
mum excavation in the Central division, and for the 
Pacific division the highest annual excavation was in 
1910. 

In the late spring of 191 2, the press in the United 
States exploited the discovery of volcanic formations 
in the bottom of the Culebra cut. The engineers have 
not been alarmed by these vaporous emissions, which, 
in July, had about stopped, and were caused, according 
to the Commission geologist, by the warm atmospheric 
effect upon pyrite material. A great variety of col- 
ored stones are found in the blasted material in the 
Cut, and when cut and polished make attractive ring 

183 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

settings and other souvenirs. One crystal-like stone 
has been found hard enough to cut glass. No coal 
or other usable minerals have been struck in the ex- 
cavations. 

In the first plans for relocating the Panama Rail- 
road, it was designed to run the tracks on the edge 
of the Cut at an elevation of lo feet above the water 
level, but the slides made this impossible. The new 
line was placed well back from the Cut away from the 
probability of slides. An observation tower used by 
thousands of tourists, back of the town of Culebra, 
for viewing operations in the Cut, was removed in 
June, 1 9 12, just in time to prevent its sliding into the 
cut, and in August two slides near Empire threw 
1,200,000 yards into the Cut, or more than a month's 
work. 

It will be a time of mingled emotions when the canal 
employees stand on the side of the Cut, in 19 13, and 
watch the waters of Gatun Lake creep up and cover 
the scene of nine years' work, and then to watch a 
ship pass in an interoceanic trip that has been the 
dream of four centuries. 



184 



CHAPTER XVI 

LABOR 

SAN FRANCISCO'S Exposition, in 191 5, cele- 
brating the formal opening of the Panama Canal, 
will be the most truly international Exposition ever 
held in this country or any other. 

Not only is the object of the Exposition interna- 
tional in interest, but there is not a nation under the 
sun, possibly, which has not contributed some of its 
citizens to the construction force of the canal. Pan- 
ama always has been cosmopolitan, a world transit 
route. The actual promise of building a canal, made 
when the Americans took charge, centered the eyes of 
the adventurous spirits of all races in the direction of 
the Isthmus. 

Every nation which participates in the Exposition 
will feel a pride that the canal, in some measure, large 
or small, owes its being to the efforts of its own sub- 
jects. The list of nationalities, or geographical desig- 
nations, represented among the employees of the Com- 
mission, or the Panama Railroad, gives an idea of the 
international appeal the canal exerts. 

These eighty-six varieties of canal employees afford 
an opportunity to brush up on geography. In the cen- 
sus of the Canal Zone, taken in February, 191 2, forty 
nationalities are listed, while in the following list, geo- 
graphical subdivisions are noted to emphasize the 
variegated labor supply at Panama: 

185 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 



Africa. 


Fiji Islands. 


Norway. 


Algeria. 


Finland. 


Panama. 


Antigua. 


Fortune Islands. 


Peru. 


Arabia. 


France. 


Porto Rico. 


Argentine. 


French Guiana. 


Portugal. 


Australia. 


Germany. 


Philippines. 


Austria. 


Greece. 


Roumania. 


Barbados. 


Grenada. 


Russia. 


Belgium. 


Guadeloupe. 


San Salvador. 


Bolivia. 


Guinea. 


Santo Domingo. 


Brazil. 


Guiana. 


St. Croix. 


Bulgaria. 


Guatemala. 


St. Kitts. 


Bahama Islands. 


Hindustan. 


St. Lucia. 


Bermuda Islands. 


Honduras. 


St. Martins. 


Bohemia. 


Holland. 


St Thomas. 


British Honduras. 


Hungary. 


St. Vincent. 


Canada. 


Iceland. 


Scotland. 


Chile. 


India. 


Spain. 


China. 


Ireland. 


Sweden. 


Colombia. 


Italy. 


Switzerland. 


Costa Rica. 


Jamaica. 


Syria. 


Cuba. 


Japan. 


Trinidad. 


Curacao. 


Liberia. 


Turkey. 


Demerara. 


Martinique. 


Turks Island. 


Dominica. 


Mexico. 


Uruguay. 


East Indies. 


Montserrat. 


Venezuela. 


Ecuador. 


Nassau. 


West Indies. 


Egypt. 


Nevis. 




England. 


Nicaragua. 





At the beginning of the American occupation, in 
1904, there were 746 men employed on the canal. Ac- 
cording to the Quartermaster's department the highest 
force of record since then was on March 30, 1910, 
when the pay-rolls showed 38,676 employees. This 
record nearly was reached on January 10, 191 2, when 
there were 38,505 employees on the rolls. The cen- 
sus report, as of February i, 1912, estimated the num- 

186 



LABOR 

ber of employees as 42,174, for the Commission and 
the Panama Railroad, which would be the record force 
in the history of the project, and not likely to be 
equaled again with the canal nearing completion. 

In the following tables the maximum force for each 
year under the Americans is given, from figures re- 
ported by the Quartermaster and the Sanitary de- 
partment. The discrepancy in favor of the Sanitary 
department is accounted for by the fact that from 
five to ten thousand workers always have been in the 
Canal Zone in excess of the number actually employed, 
and had to be cared for the same as the regularly 
employed men. The third column shows the number 
of Americans in the Canal Zone for the same period. 

Year Quarter- Sanitary Ameri- 

master Dept. cans 

1904 3.500 6,213 700 

1905 10,500 16,512 1,500 

1906 23,901 26,547 3,264 

1907 31.967 39.238 5.000 

1908 33.170 43,891 5,126 

1909 35.405 47.167 5.300 

I9IO 38,676 50,802 5,573 

1911 37.271 48,876 6,163 

1912 38,505 48,000 6,008 

The percentage of Americans in the total working 
force usually has been one sixth or one seventh. 
Their work is of a supervisory character, or skilled 
labor, such as mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, ma- 
sons, electricians, etc. They also are the steam shovel, 

187 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

locomotive and marine engineers, railroad conductors, 
time inspectors, firemen, policemen, all branches of 
civil administration, office forces, sanitary and hospital 
officers, foremen, civil engineers, and the like. In 1912 
there were 4,064 wives and children of American em- 
ployees. 

Laborers did not come to the Canal Zone in suffi- 
cient numbers during the early years, necessitating re- 
cruiting offices in Europe, the West Indies, and the 
United States. A total of 43,000 men were imported 
under contract with the Commission, from 1904 to 
1910, and it was thought the labor problem had been 
solved, but in July, August, and September, 191 1, it 
became necessary to import 1,300 laborers to fill up 
the ranks depleted by the migration of employees to 
other Central and South American fields. 

Spain furnished the largest number of European 
laborers to the canal until the government of that 
country, in 1908, forbid further emigration to Pan- 
ama. The Spaniards also proved to be the most 
satisfactory common labor employed by the Com- 
mission. Out of a total of 11,797 European labor- 
ers imported to 19 10, 8,222 were Spaniards, and 
the others came principally from Italy, France, and 
Armenia. 

The colored labor predominates in the Canal Zone 
and was obtained in the islands of the West Indies. 
Barbados furnished the largest number, 19,448; Mar- 
tinique, 5,542; Guadeloupe, Jamaica, Trinidad, St. 
Kitts, Curacao, Fortune Islands, etc., 4,677 — a grand 
total of 2%(i^'j. Costa Rica, Colombia, and Panama 

188 



LABOR 

furnished 1,493: unclassified, 2,163. The largest im- 
migration for one year was in 1907, when 14,942 
laborers were imported, while in 1906, 12,609 ^^" 
rived. 

Chief Engineer Stevens in his first annual report 
estimated the native labor to be about 33 per cent as 
efficient as common American labor. However, this 
standard has been raised under the perfection of the 
organization in later years, though nothing like the 
capacity for hard and effective work, shown in labor 
under private management in the United States, has 
been developed. Mr. Stevens asked for bids for sup- 
plying 2,500 Chinese coolies to the Canal Zone, in 
1906, with a provision for 15,000 if needed, but this 
move never resulted in importing any Chinese under 
contract. Conditions as to pay, quarters, and treat- 
ment received such favorable advertising that, in 1910, 
more than 2,000 Europeans voluntarily came to the 
Canal Zone to seek employment. 

The color line has been drawn in the Canal Zone 
by dividing the employees into " gold " and " silver " 
men. In the first category are the Americans, and in 
the second the common and unskilled laborers. Wages 
are paid in silver to the laborers and salaries to the 
Americans are paid in gold. This distinction is not 
a hard and fast one and the idea was adopted as the 
best means for the Government to draw the color 
line — a practice it would not attempt under the Con- 
stitution in the United States. Second-class coaches 
are provided on the trains, special windows in the 
4 189 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

post offices, special clerks in the commissary, and sep- 
arate eating places for the silver employees. 

Stability has not been a feature of the American 
working force at Panama. In 191 1, the gold force 
changed to the extent of 60 per cent, and the average 
stay on the Isthmus, of mechanics, has been only one 
year. The reason for this is found partly in the fact 
that many workers come simply to see the big job 
and make expenses while on the trip and partly in the 
lack of diversions after work hours. There are sa- 
loons in the Canal Zone, and the clubhouses afford 
billiards, pool, bowling, gymnasium, reading room, 
and a weekly moving picture show, but the simple 
life rules supreme, palling on those who have a taste 
for the gay white lights. Panama and Colon do not 
afford much greater entertainment if they were easily 
accessible to the inland canal employees. This lack 
of relaxation and recreation facilities is the only draw- 
back to the otherwise ideal working conditions in the 
Canal Zone. Eat, sleep, and work is the monotonous 
round of the canal employee and the most of them 
save money. 

Tourists in the Canal Zone commonly do not see 
the great shops at Gorgona and Empire, where repairs 
for the machinery and equipment used in building the 
canal are made, and where original iron and steel 
construction is done. The Gorgona shops cover about 
22 acres and have seven miles of tracks. Much small 
iron work, such as making bolts, machinery parts and 
pattern work, is done more cheaply than in the United 
States, when freight to the Isthmus is considered. 

190 




I. Old French Locomotive. 2. Steam Shovel. 3. Slide in 
CuLEBRA Cut. 4. Track Shifter. 



LABOR 

Owing to the long distance from the base of supplies 
these shops early were equipped to do any work the 
canal plant might require. All equipment on the canal 
receives rough handling in the desire to make records 
in excavation, dumping or concrete laying, with the 
consequence that the shops usually are crowded with 
broken down dump cars, locomotives, steam shovels, 
and other apparatus. Gorgona is the Pittsburgh of the 
Canal Zone. The town and shops will have to be 
abandoned before the opening of the canal as the 
waters of Gatun Lake will surround it, and cover the 
present shop site. 

Many labor-saving devices have been born of ne- 
cessity in the Canal Zone. The honor for inventing 
the greatest of these belongs to W. G. Bierd, formerly 
general manager of the Panama Railroad, and the 
man who most largely was responsible for bringing 
that archaic system from chaos to order, under Chief 
Engineer Stevens. He originated a Track Shifter 
which does the work of 500 men in one day and re- 
quires only nine men to operate it. This locomotive 
machine has a crane which raises the tracks, ties and 
all, clear of the ground, then swings it to the side 
for three feet or more, according to the elasticity of 
the rails. Thus the hand method, of pulling out spikes, 
removing the ties to the desired place and relaying the 
rails, is abolished. If we figure that one track shifter 
has worked an average of 300 days in the last six 
years, it has done work which by the old hand method 
would have required more than 1,000,000 men to do 
in one day, or 500 men working each day during the 

191 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

six years. The track shifter in that six years re- 
quired 16,200 men, on the basis of nine men a day, 
for its operation. There were three track shifters 
when Col. Goethals took charge in 1907 and there 
were ten in 19 12. At 10 cents an hour, 500 men a 
day would cost $400. In a year this would be 
$120,000 and in six years $720,000, but that estimate 
of the cost by the hand method is too low, and when 
the number in use is considered, making allowances 
for hours not at v/ork, the track shifter has saved the 
government several million dollars. Mr. Bierd re- 
ceived nothing from the Commission for his inven- 
tion. A Spaniard who devised a simple method of 
dumping steel cars received $50 a month royalty. 

Strikes have never been successful in the Canal 
Zone. In 1904 President Roosevelt gave the Com- 
mission the power to expel anybody from the Canal 
Zone who, in its discretion, was not necessary to the 
work of building the canal, or was objectionable for 
any reason. No such power resides in any American 
State government, but the Supreme Court held that 
the Canal Zone was not under the Constitution and 
was subject to the regulation of a military reservation. 
The President took the wise view that the Americans 
were there for the express purpose of building a canal 
and nobody should be allowed to remain whose con- 
duct or presence might clog the wheels of construction. 
This power also has been used to expel undesirable 
women as well as men. 

On November 22, 1910, the boilermakers in the 
Gorgona and Empire shops struck for higher pay, and 

192 



LABOR 

for the same vacation allowance given to employees 
on a monthly pay basis. They were receiving 65 
cents an hour, or about 40 per cent more than similar 
work in the United States earned, and in addition had 
quarters free. Their demand for 75 cents an hour 
was refused but two weeks' vacation with pay and 
extra time without pay was granted. Although the 
strike crippled the shops for a few weeks, Col. 
Goethals saw to it that they left on the first steamers 
out for the United States and the Washington recruit- 
ing office soon supplied their places. The steam-shovel 
men, in a restive mood, met the same treatment and 
the locomotive engineers, who threatened a walk-out, 
thought better when they had the alternative of re- 
turning forthwith to the United States, or going to 
work, presented to them. 

This peremptory manner of handling employees is 
justified only by the peculiar conditions at Panama. 
In truth there never has been any excuse for strikes 
or dissatisfaction with working conditions, after the 
first two years. The canal employees are the most 
pampered set of workers in the world. An eight- 
hour day with a two-hour intermission at noon, first- 
class board cheaper than in the United States, free 
quarters, free medical service on full pay, nine holi- 
days on pay, reduced railroad rates, wages and sal- 
aries from 30 to 80 per cent higher than in the United 
States, an annual vacation of forty- two days on full 
pay for gold employees, and the necessaries of life 
for sale at lower prices in the government commis- 
sary than in the United States. 

193 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Yet, with conditions of employment on this Utopian 
basis, there has been considerable complaining. These 
complaints reached the limit of absurdity, in 1912, 
when a petition was presented to Col. Goethals ask- 
ing that employees be paid for all the sick leave they 
did not use during the year. In other words, as an 
employee could be sick for thirty days on pay in one 
year, if he was sick only five days they asked that the 
twenty-five days not used, during which he was being 
paid for his work, should receive an additional com- 
pensation of full pay for that time. It was a plain 
invitation to the government to pay employees not 
to get sick. Col. Goethals said the Commission could 
not even consider such a proposition. 

It is a noticeable fact to one who spends several 
months among the canal employees that many look 
upon themselves much in the light of war veterans who 
should be pensioned or receive special consideration 
from the government. Certain older employees are 
the worst offenders in this way. They think the gov- 
ernment owes them some sort of a position at equally 
good pay for the remainder of their lives. The pro- 
posal to reduce salaries, for the permanent operating 
force, to a point 25 per cent above the standard in 
the United States is scouted by them as preposterous. 
Many of those who went through the hardships of 
the first two years, although they stayed with the job 
because it looked good as a business proposition, now 
assume that such service entitles them to be ranked 
as national heroes who henceforth are to be the wards 
of Uncle Sam's bounty. When they finish at Panama 

194 



LABOR 

they expect to be shifted to positions in the govern- 
ment service elsewhere, at the same pay, which would 
be impossible, unless they were made bureau chiefs 
or salaries should receive a perpendicular treatment 
unknown to the civil service in the United States. The 
older employees are thinning out, however, as may be 
noted by the statement that in May, 1912, there were 
only 63 employees who had come in 1904. 

No one realizes how generous the government has 
been to its employees at Panama more than the em- 
ployee who leaves the service to return to work in 
the United States. Over and over again such em- 
ployees have returned to the Canal Zone to take work 
at wages or salaries less than they were receiving 
when they quit. One foreman drawing $250 a month 
in Panama decided he could do as well at home. In 
a year he returned to the Canal Zone and gladly took 
a position at 65 cents an hour, or about $132 a month. 
The cost of living, and standard of pay, in the United 
States made him repent his action. 

In many departments the government work at Pan- 
ama is not as exacting in its standard of efficiency 
as under private industry in the United States. This 
especially is true of the transportation department 
where young fellows are drawing $190 a month, as 
dirt train conductors, who could not earn $65 a month 
as cub brakemen on a high-grade American railroad. 
The high pay in the Canal Zone not only draws em- 
ployees back to the job, but the pace of American 
industrial life is so much swifter than the easy-going 
canal organization, that this, too, makes them think 

195 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

of the flesh-pots of Egypt. The steam-shovel men, 
who are after records, come nearer to the mark of 
efficiency in the United States than perhaps any other 
class of employees. Efficiency here is used in the 
sense not only of capability but of productivity, for 
necessarily the canal organization is capable in its en- 
gineering and administrative departments, but has 
most of the ear-marks of a government job — the-take- 
your-time-and-don't-overwork characteristic. 

Any employee on a monthly salary basis may take 
eighty-one days off at full pay in every year. He has 
a vacation of forty-two days on pay, a sick leave of 
thirty days on pay, and nine holidays on pay, a total 
of eighty-one days that the government voluntarily de- 
prives itself of the employee's services. The sick 
leave, too, is pretty generally used up by the employees, 
who have little trouble in persuading a district phy- 
sician they need a rest at Taboga sanitarium or Ancon 
hospital. It is apparent that the government has in- 
vested some of its millions in a way no private con- 
tractor could follow, except into bankruptcy. If an 
employee does not take his vacation one year, he can 
accumulate it for the next year, and so get 84 days 
at full pay, and his trip to the United States will 
cost him only $20 or $30 a one-way passage. 

Pay days until October i, 1907, were semimonthly. 
Since then monthly pay days have been the custom, 
the pay car starting out on the 12th and finishing in 
three days for the entire Canal Zone. The Disburs- 
ing Office, at Empire, is a great bank handling nearly 
$3,000,000 a month. A Chinaman and a Hindoo are 

196 



LABOR 

the expert money counters in this office. Payments 
for wages have increased from $600,000 monthly, in 
1905, to nearly $2,000,000 a month as a maximum in 
1910-1911-1912. 

Silver employees, or common laborers, earn 5, 7, 
10, 13, 16, 20, and 25 cents an hour, with a few 
exceptions at 32 and 44 cents an hour, and a maxi- 
mum monthly silver rate of $75. 

Gold employees, which includes all the Americans, 
are paid from a minimum of $75 monthly to a maxi- 
mum of $600 monthly, not including in this classifica- 
tion heads of departments. Col. Goethals, as Chair- 
man and Chief Engineer and President of the Panama 
Railroad Company, receives $21,000 annually; other 
members of the Commission, $14,000 annually; 
clerks, from $75 to $250 monthly; draftsmen, $100 to 
$250; engineers, assistant, special and designing, $225 
to $600; foreman, $75 to $275; inspectors, $75 to 
$250; marine masters, $140 to $225 ; master mechanic, 
$225 to $275; physicians, $150 to $300; district quar- 
termasters, $150 to $225; hotel steward, $60 to $175; 
storekeepers, $60 to $225; superintendents, $175 to 
$583.33; supervisors, $200 to $250; teachers, $60 to 
$110; trainmaster, $200 to $275; yardmaster, $190 to 
$21.0; nurses, $60 to $150; policemen, $80 to $107.50; 
master car builder, $225; fire department privates, 
$100; traveling engineer, $250; accountants, $175 to 
$250; musical director, $166.67; mates, $100 to $175; 
postmasters, $50 to $137.50. 

Wages on an hourly basis are in part as follows: 
apprentice, 10 to 25 cents; blacksmith, 32 to 70 cents; 

197 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

boilermakers, 32 to 70 cents ; bricklayers, 65 cents ; car 
inspector and repairer, 32 to 65 cents; carpenter, 32 
to 65 cents ; ship caulker, 65 cents ; coach cabinetmaker, 
65 cents; coppersmith, 32 to 65 cents; ironworker, 44 
to 70 cents; lineman, ^2 to 65 cents; machinist, 32 
to 70 cents ; molder, 32 to 70 cents ; painter, 32 to 65 
cents; pipefitter, 32 to 65 cents; planing mill hand, 
32 to 56 cents; plumber, 32 to 75 cents; tinsmith, 32 
to 65 cents; wireman, 32 to 65 cents; shipwright, 44 
to 65 cents; locomotive engineers earn from $125 to 
$210 monthly; steam-shovel engineer from $210 to 
$240; steam engineer, $75 to $200. The hourly rates 
quoted run as high as 62 per cent greater than the 
pay for similar work in the United States Navy yards, 
or private industries. 

The canal was estimated to cost $375,000,000. Out 
of that amount, the part which had gone into wages 
and salaries to June 30, 1912, was approximately 
$120,000,000. By the time the canal is finished, and 
opened for permanent use, in 191 4, this item will reach 
the startling total of $150,000,000. From 20 to 25 
per cent of it has gone into salaries of officers and 
supervisory employees, and from 75 to 80 per cent 
into wages to skilled and unskilled labor. 

The Commission has the work of repatriation of 
imported employees already under way. While nearly 
45,000 workers were imported under contract that pro- 
vided for their return home when the canal was done, 
the Commission will not have anything like this num- 
ber to repatriate as thousands have left voluntarily to 
new fields of labor or quit the service under conditions 

198 



LABOR 

that forfeit their right of return at the Commission's 
expense. It will not be difficult to get sufficient com- 
mon labor for the permanent canal. 

As the conglomeration of races presents names im- 
possible of uniformly correct spelling, every employee 
has a numbered brass check for identification, which 
he must show to get his pay. 



199 



CHAPTER XVII 

COMMISSARY — QUARTERS SUBSISTENCE 

DURING the first year of American operations in 
Panama, the problem of food and merchandise 
supply for the army of workers was not worked out. 
The Panama Railroad long had maintained a commis- 
sary for its employees, but its facilities totally were 
inadequate, as they existed in 1904, for satisfactory 
service to the increased thousands of employees and 
their families. 

Chief Engineer Stevens, in 1905, turned his atten- 
tion to this problem as one, upon the proper solution 
of which would depend satisfactory conditions of liv- 
ing for the canal workers. By April, 1907, when he 
resigned, the present commissary and hotel systems, as 
well as the system of housing the employees, which 
challenge the admiration of the tourist, had been cre- 
ated, and all that was left to Col. Goethals to do, in 
this phase of the task, was to enlarge the systems as 
the organization expanded. 

Under Mr. Stevens the Department of Labor, Quar- 
ters, and Subsistence covered the whole ground. In 
1908, Col. Goethals modified the organization by cre- 
ating a Quartermaster's Department along Army lines, 
which had charge of all buildings and the accounta- 
bility for all physical property of the Commission, 
the recruiting of labor, storage of material and sup- 

200 



COMMISSARY— QUARTERS— SUBSISTENCE 

plies, collection of garbage, distribution of commissary 
merchandise to employees, and the cutting of grass as 
directed by the Sanitary Department. A Subsistence 
Department then was created, which in addition to 
operating the hotels, kitchens, and messes, was given 
supervision over the Panama Railroad Commissary. 
The bookkeeping for the commissary, however, is 
done by the railroad company and the profits go into 
its accounts, but as the government owns the rail- 
road, the distinction only is one of bookkeeping. 

Merchants in Panama and Colon objected to a gov- 
ernment commissary on the idea that it would be a 
competition not contemplated when the Canal Zone 
was ceded, and they made overtures to the Commission 
for taking over the business of supplying canal em- 
ployees with the necessaries of life. Had this been 
done an inconceivable amount of dissatisfaction would 
have resulted, through the ruinously high prices the 
employees would have been compelled to pay for the 
privately owned merchandise. 

The government has made a profit from the com- 
missary operations because it arbitrarily has fixed the 
price of commodities at a point which would pay for 
the construction of storehouses, and the usual ex- 
penses of merchandising two thousand miles from the 
markets of the world. But, owing to the immense 
quantities in which all articles are bought, and the 
absence of a grasping policy as to profits, the canal 
employees customarily buy almost everything more 
cheaply than the same merchandise sells for in the 
United States. 

20 1 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

For one reason, there is no tariff in the Canal Zone. 
Foreign made goods are imported without the expense 
to the consumer that the high protective duties at 
home necessitate. Irish linens, English and Scotch 
cloth, French perfumery, Swiss and Scandinavian 
dairy products, and a wide variety of other European 
manufactures, make the commissary, with the Ameri- 
can merchandise in stock, a great department store 
which in the fiscal year 1912 did a business amounting 
to $6,702,355.68. . 

General headquarters are at Cristobal, on the At- 
lantic side. The steamships of the Panama Railroad 
Line every week replenish the food supplies with sea- 
sonable offerings from the American markets. The 
scope of the operations include a laundry, bakery, ice 
cream plant, ice factory, cold storage, coffee roasting 
plant, and laboratory for making extracts. 

The year 191 1 is typical of the scale on which the 
commissary has been operated since 1906. Importa- 
tions of principal commodities were as follows : 

Groceries $1,278,594.79 

Hardware 86,768.86 

Dry Goods 603,490.18 

Boots & Shoes 164,168.89 

Cold Storage Supplies 1,573,202.97 

Furniture 9,020.48 

Tobacco 182,590.96 

Raw Materials 215,375.22 

Paper, Stationery, etc 54^579-05 

Total $4,267,792.05 

202 



COMMISSARY— QUARTERS— SUBSISTENCE 

These importations do not represent the total trans- 
actions of the commissary for that year, as the stock 
on hand, and bought on the Isthmus, ran the volume 
of business to $5,754,955.69. Of this amount the 
Commission paid $1,625,348.77 for supplies used in 
the hotels, messes, kitchens, and elsewhere; and 
$3,609,358.01 represents the amount of the total 
which was paid by employees using coupon books. 
Nineteen stores were operated in as many settlements 
and towns and the average monthly business was 

$479,579-69. 

No cash sales are made at the Commissary. Em- 
ployees are issued coupon books in value from $2.50 
to $15.00 and containing coupons ranging in face 
value from one cent to twenty-five cents. Enough 
coupons are torn out by the clerks to cover each pur- 
chase. At the end of each month the value of the 
coupon books is deducted from the employee's salary. 
In 1 912 the practice of selling coupon books for cash 
was extended to the employees. Formerly no books 
would be issued after the 28th nor before the 4th of 
each month, and a gold employee could only ask for 
books to the extent of 661 per cent of his salary, or 
a silver employee for not more than $15 in any one 
month. While the old method still is in vogue, by 
selling books for cash the employees who thoughtlessly 
failed to provide books to run them through the 
month may supply their needs. The books are not 
transferable. 

The quantities of various articles handled by the 
commissary in the year being reviewed were as fol- 

203 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

lows: Eggs, 692,060 dozen; butter, 429,267 pounds; 
meats, 9,241,858 pounds; poultry, 554,028 pounds; 
milk and cream, 86,466 gallons; coffee, 320,491 
pounds; flour, 16,638 barrels; ice, 33,267 tons; ice 
cream, 110,208 gallons. 

At 4.30 o'clock each morning a special train of from 
fourteen to eighteen cars leaves Cristobal with fresh 
supplies for the towns in the Canal Zone. The branch 
stores usually have small cold storage facilities to pre- 
serve such meats and perishable goods as may be nec- 
essary for the day's operations. Once a month the 
Commissary Bulletin is issued, with price lists and 
announcements of special sales on various articles. 
The feminine instinct for bargains thus is not 
atrophied by residence in the Canal Zone. 

While the cost of living has been a rampant issue 
in the United States, the canal employees have enjoyed 
comparatively lower prices, as well as a greater pur- 
chasing power because of higher pay. 

One central laundry is operated for the white, or 
gold, employees. In 191 1 there were 7,260 patrons 
and 3,581,923 pieces were laundered. Patrons deposit 
their bundles at the branch commissaries in the re- 
spective towns and they are collected for shipment 
over the railroad to Cristobal. By this centraliza- 
tion of work the cost is from 30 to 50 per cent lower 
than for similar work in American cities. Cleaning 
and pressing are done for both men and women's 
clothes at correspondingly low rates. 

Panama hats are not as extensively worn by the 
Americans as one might imagine, and they are not a 

204 



COMMISSARY— QUARTERS—SUBSISTENCE 

great deal cheaper than in the United States. Con- 
trary to popular belief, Panama hats are not made 
in Panama. They are made in Colombia, Ecuador, 
and Peru, the finest coming from Montecristi, Ecua- 
dor. Years ago traders from those countries were in 
the habit of bringing the hats to Panama to sell to 
ships bound for the United States or Europe, and so 
they came to be known as Panama hats. Imitations 
are made in Jamaica and Porto Rico and many frauds 
are perpetrated upon the American people by dealers 
who profess to have genuine Panama hats at prices 
sometimes lower than our tariff would be on the real 
article. Prices vary according to the length of the 
fibers used in their manufacture, the finest ones being 
without any seams, and cost as high as $150. 

Quarters 

Early in 1905, the Commission advertised free 
quarters to both married and bachelor employees as 
a special inducement to come to the Canal Zone. 
Thus, in addition to high pay the employees have no 
house or room rent to pay. This alone constitutes a 
sharp increase in an employee's income over what he 
could earn in the United States for similar work, but 
this is not all he receives gratis. 

It has been figured that in six years the Commis- 
sion grants to each married employee gratuities that 
cost it $3,000; and to a bachelor employee gratuities 
that cost $750. The monthly service, such as com- 
missary, fuel, and distilled water deliveries, removal 
of garbage, etc., to a married employee costs $12; and 

205 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

janitor service, and other service to a bachelor em- 
ployee costs $2.25 monthly. In six years an average 
force of 5,000 employees has been entitled to these 
gratuities and it is figured that the total investment 
by the Commission in that period for all free service 
and gratuities runs between ten and twenty million 
dollars. 

To a married employee the free allowance is as 
follows: An individual house, or an apartment in a 
building with two or four families ; a range, a double 
bed, two pillows, six dining chairs, two kitchen chairs, 
one chiffonier, two center tables, a mosquito bar, a 
refrigerator, a double dresser, a double mattress, a 
kitchen table, a dining table, sideboard, bedroom mat, 
and three wicker porch chairs. 

The Quartermaster's Department delivers purchases 
from the commissary and ice; the fuel used in the 
kitchen stove is free, as are electricity and hydrant and 
bathroom water. Telephones are free if the employee 
needs one in connection with his duties. Housekeep- 
ers must buy their own tableware, bedclothes, light 
furniture and bric-a-brac. 

Married quarters were assigned, in 1905 and 1906, 
on the basis of one square foot for each dollar of 
salary, with extra allowances for the wife and chil- 
dren. This method was abandoned and quarters are 
assigned without regard to salary, except that offi- 
cials receive first consideration. There are one, two, 
and four family houses, entirely screened on the out- 
side. As a rule there has been a scarcity of married 
quarters and occasionally of bachelor quarters. Every 

206 



COMMISSARY— QUARTERS— SUBSISTENCE 

house, or apartment, has its shower bath, tubs not 
being used, and each town has a complete sewer sys- 
tem. 

Bachelors, whether men or women, are treated cor- 
respondingly well. Quarters with two, three, or four 
in a room, and janitor service are free. In the early 
days there was unpleasant crowding because of the 
scarcity of buildings, but only occasionally has there 
been congestion in late years. These buildings shelter 
from a dozen to sixty men and like the married quar- 
ters are screened on the outside. A war was waged 
until vermin practically was eradicated. They are 
electrically lighted and have the usual shower bath 
and sanitary arrangements. Barracks of a less pre- 
tentious architecture are provided for the silver em- 
ployees. 

Hotels operated by the Commission are the board- 
ing places for the bachelor employees. The wide 
verandas are screened and tables here are reserved for 
the bachelor girls, and for the men who wear coats 
at meal time. Inside the employees may eat in their 
shirt sleeves. The meals cost thirty cents each and 
are paid for by coupons that come fifty to the book. 
These books cost $15, and the amount is deducted 
from the employee's salary at the end of the month, 
so that no cash is handled at the hotels, except from 
nonemployees, who must pay fifty cents for a meal. 

The fare could not be duplicated in the United 
States for seventy-five cents a meal. A typical thirty- 
cent menu includes soup, two kinds of meat, four kinds 
of vegetables, hot rolls or light bread, a salad, tea, 

207 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

coffee, or cocoa, and for dessert, ice cream or pie. 
On every table are fruit, olives, preserves, condiments 
— and for several years in the early stages, an open 
bowl of quinine as a malarial antidote. To even up 
with the free goods given to married employees, the 
Commission furnishes the hotels their stoves, furni- 
ture and fuel and does not include these items in 
figuring the cost of operation. 

The hotels for the gold employees usually have been 
operated at a slight loss, while the European laborers* 
messes and the colored laborers' kitchens have shown 
a profit. At the messes for the Europeans, principally 
Spaniards and Italians, the cost of three meals is forty 
cents, while at the kitchens where the West Indian 
laborers get their food cooked, to take away and eat, 
the cost is thirty cents for three meals. The food is 
always wholesome and plentiful and the tastes of the 
various nationalities are studied to give them that to 
which they are accustomed. The West Indians con- 
sume more than lOO tons of rice monthly, the Italians 
want macaroni, and the Spaniards eat vast quantities 
of bread. 

Stewards at the hotels for the gold employees found 
that each man averaged only two meals a day. The 
saving to an employee by cutting out one meal is $9 
a month. They substitute fruit, or a sandwich from 
the clubhouse, for the third meal and in the two they 
do eat, stow away enough to satisfy their needs. 
Three meals a day at thirty cents each would cost $27 
a month. Two meals a day, or sixty for the month, 
cost $18. Some of the employees cut out breakfast 

208 



COMMISSARY— QUARTERS— SUBSISTENCE 

and some lunch, so the stewards prepare food for an 
average of two meals per employee. 

The Tivoli Hotel at Ancon, on the Pacific side, is 
the tourist hotel operated by the Commission. Its 
rates, American plan, are $5.50 a day and up. During 
the dry season it is crowded with guests, in 191 2 
about 14,000 tourists having visited the Canal Zone. 
There are 218 rooms and a dining room that will 
seat 750 persons. An addition was finished in 191 2 
at a cost of $57,000. At Colon, on the Atlantic side 
the Commission is building the Washington Hotel, to 
cost $500,000, for the use of visitors to the Canal 
Zone. 

In 191 1, the hotels for American employees showed 
a loss of $20,905.44; European messes, a profit of 
$39,236.63; colored laborers' kitchens, a profit of 
$14,461.95; and the Tivoli Hotel, a profit of 
$26,227.05. 

Still another factor that makes living in the Canal 
Zone cheaper than in the United States is the result 
of the climate. With a uniformly warm temperature, 
the quality of clothes does not vary the year round. 
For the women, light summery goods, largely white ; 
for the men, duck or linen suits or light staple cloths. 
The saving from not having to buy new clothes with 
the change of seasons is important, and the employees 
generally try to arrange their vacations so as to be 
in the United States in mild weather. Class distinc- 
tions are not drawn rigidly, so that there is not a 
furious competition in dressing or keeping up appear- 

209 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

ances, but there decidedly is no " slouch " in the Canal 
Zone. 

A bride starts out life there on a basis that means 
a rude jolt to her when the canal is finished and she 
returns to the United States. Young couples who 
have been treading the easy path of high salary, free 
rent, free water, light and fuel, cheaper food, clothes 
and furniture, elastic class distinctions and plentiful 
though not efficient servants, must ever look back 
upon their Canal Zone experience as the particularly 
bright period in their careers. The withering blasts 
of social competition, high cost of living, and salaries 
from one to two thirds lower in the United States, 
will make the easy-going, over-generous life at Pan- 
ama seem the " temps de luxe " in their lives. 

Transient writers visiting the canal dilate on the 
happy demeanor of the employees. A perusal of the 
foregoing conditions of employment would suggest 
that a good many million dollars of government 
money have been spent to buy that joyousness. The 
employees have a very happy time at the expense of 
the American people, yet it has been a better way of 
investing money than maintaining useless navy yards, 
or $100,000 Federal buildings at Western prairie 
hamlets ! 



2IO 



CHAPTER XWII 

CIVIL ADMINISTRATION 

HAVING undertaken an eleven-year task in 
Panama, the Americans realized at the outset 
that it must be gone about with the deliberation of a 
permanent settlement in the tropics. The problem 
was to duplicate the civilization of the United States 
on a scale suitable to the Canal Zone, so that the 
employees and their families would not lack for 
anything essential to their happiness and normal ad- 
vancement. 

In the first conception of the needs of the situation, 
the position of Governor was created, with Maj.- 
Gen. George W. Davis as the head of civil govern- 
ment. His powers were coextensive with the Chief 
Engineer and the Chairman of the Commission. Dur- 
ing the year he spent in the Canal Zone as Governor, 
Ma j. -Gen. Davis was occupied with engineering prob- 
lems and in settling disputed points with the Republic 
of Panama, but substantial progress in organizing the 
powers of government was made. 

Charles E. Magoon was appointed Governor on 
April I, 1905, to succeed Ma j. -Gen. Davis, and he 
served until September 25, 1906. Gov. Magoon had 
powers as extensive as Gov. Davis, and the present 
civil government was rounded into form under his 
direction. Ex- Senator Jo C. S. Blackburn, of Ken- 

211 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

tucky, became the head of civil government with the 
Goethals Commission on April i, 1907, but the Presi- 
dent had transferred the vital pow^ers of the office to 
the Chairman and Chief Engineer, and thenceforward 
the Governor was known as the Head of the Depart- 
ment of Civil Administration. Gov. Blackburn re- 
signed on December 4, 1909, and was succeeded on 
April 12, 1910, by the Hon. Maurice H. Thatcher, 
also of Kentucky. 

This department conducts the diplomatic affairs of 
the Commission with the Republic of Panama and the 
representatives of foreign governments in Panama. 
It is organized as follows: Division of Posts, Cus- 
toms, and Revenues; Division of Police; Division of 
Schools; Division of Fire Protection; Division of 
Public Works; Division of Courts. 

The Division of Posts, Customs, and Revenues has 
the supervision of the Canal Zone post offices, the 
entrance and clearance of ships at Cristobal and Bal- 
boa, the leasing and taxing of government lands, and 
the laying and collecting of taxes on houses, occupa- 
tions, and businesses. Every settlement has a post 
office, which the employees used as a bank until the 
opening of the postal savings system on February i, 
1912. Since the opening of the money-order depart- 
ment on June i, 1906, the Canal Zone post offices 
have sold more than $25,000,000 in money orders. 
Out of this amount more than $5,000,000 was for 
money orders payable in the Canal Zone and repre- 
sents a practice of buying the orders to have a safe 
depository of surplus earnings. When an employee 

212 



CIVIL ADMINISTRATION 

desired his money, he presented the money order pay- 
able to himself. In 191 1 the money-order business 
was $5,304,906.60, divided among 214,000 orders. 
The great bulk of the orders was payable in the 
United States. Postage rates are the same as in the 
United States, but Panama stamps are used. 

Spanish taxing methods were followed, so far as 
was practicable, by the Americans in dealing with the 
natives. The sixty or seventy saloons that the Com- 
mission licensed in the Canal Zone are regulated 
strictly and pay an annual license, each, of $1,200. 
Selling liquor on government property is another in- 
stance where the Canal Zone is an exception to the 
rules followed in the United States. Only revocable 
leases for lands are issued to the natives now, so that 
the Canal Zone may be cleared of all but employees on 
short notice. 

The Division of Police was organized by George R. 
Shanton, a Western type of rough-and-ready sheriff, 
specially selected by President Roosevelt. The divi- 
sion now is a well-disciplined body of officers and 
men, numbering forty-one of the former and 233 of 
the latter, of which all the officers and 117 of the 
privates are white. Each town has a police station, 
and, considering the conglomeration of races, the 
Canal Zone is conspicuously law-abiding. 

The judiciary system as developed for the Canal 
Zone includes a Supreme Court at Ancon, circuit 
courts and district courts, with right of appeal to the 
Federal courts of the United States. It was not until 
February 6, 1908, that jury trials for capital offenses 

213 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

were granted, as President Roosevelt wanted " fron- 
tier " justice to prevail, on the idea that discipline 
among the employees and population best could be 
maintained thereby. The first execution for a capital 
offense was on November 20, 1908. The first jury 
trial was on March 19, 1908. The natives found 
American ideals of justice somewhat exacting, espe- 
cially the one requiring all those of opposite sexes 
who lived together to be married formally. Free love 
was a practice of long standing. A penitentiary, 
maintained at Culebra, will be relocated on the east 
side of the canal for the permanent organization. The 
native people have been nick-named " spiggoty " 
by the Americans from their expression " speeka-da- 
Engleesh," which finally was contracted into " spig- 
goty." 

Fires have been unusually rare occurrences in the 
Canal Zone, where all construction is frame. The 
largest and only fire of consequence was at Mt. Hope 
on April i, 1907, when the quartermaster's store- 
house was destroyed at a loss to the Commission of 
$100,000. There are sixteen officers and forty-six 
firemen on the regular pay-rolls, and there have been 
as many as eighteen volunteer companies with 295 
members. The equipment is of the most modern 
American type. 

Gov. Magoon opened the first public school in the 
Canal Zone on January 2, 1906. In 191 2 there were 
25 buildings for both white and colored pupils, with 
46 white and 28. colored teachers, an enrollment of 
1,240 white and 1,524 colored pupils, and an average 

214 



Photos, 1, 2, S, Harris & E icing, Wahiiigton, D. 
Jf, International JS/eics Service. 



Maj.-Gen. George W. Davis. 
3. Jo C. S. Blackburn. 4. 



2. Charles E. Magoon. 
M. H. Thatcher. 



CIVIL ADMINISTRATION 

attendance for the former of 904, and of the latter, 
688. The schools have a number of disadvantages to 
overcome, not the least of v^hich has been the epi- 
demic of matrimony that has raged unremittingly 
among the teachers. Sometimes the personnel changes 
40 per cent from this factor alone. Another factor 
has been the diversity of standards and nationalities. 
In one year the teachers were from 16 different states, 
bringing as many systems of education into their 
work; 732 pupils had come to the Canal Zone from 
thirty-six states, and there were twenty-one nation- 
alities other than American. To weld all these het- 
erogeneous elements into a uniform system has been 
a difficult task. Transportation over the railroad to 
and from the schools is free to the pupils, as are the 
books and other materials used. High schools are 
maintained at Gatun and Ancon. 

Social life in the Canal Zone expresses itself in 
weekly dances at the clubhouses and Tivoli Hotel, in 
woman's clubs, lodge auxiliaries, church societies, and 
the usual round of parties. The Commission has 
furnished houses for use by the lodges and religious 
denominations, many of which are represented in 
regular meetings and services. The clubhouses, un- 
der the supervision of the Y. M. C. A., are the social 
centers of each community, as the women are given 
limited privileges. Soft drinks, tobacco, and lunch- 
eons may be obtained at the clubhouses at all hours. 
The annual cost of operating them is about $150,000, 
the Commission paying the deficits where the member- 
ship fees do not cover the expenses. 

215 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

The Panama Lottery has found in the canal em- 
ployees generous patrons. It was started in 1883, 
with a provision in the concession that 64 per cent of 
the income should be paid out in prizes. When the 
President, in 1904, forbade the sale of the tickets in 
the Canal Zone, the Lottery Company thought they 
had been damaged several million dollars' worth, but 
the Americans have been able to get all the tickets 
they wanted, either by going into Panama and Colon 
for them or sending others. A full ticket costs $2.50 
and may draw a prize of $7,500. A fifth of the 
ticket may be bought for fifty cents and, if of the 
winning number, draws $1,500. There are smaller 
prizes for approximations of the right number. Each 
Sunday at Panama a boy draws a number from a 
box, and there has never been complaint of unfair- 
ness in deciding the winning number. It is difficult 
to estimate the amount invested each week in the lot- 
tery by the Americans, but it runs well into the thou- 
sands of dollars. Many of them have won capital 
prizes. In view of the fact that the moral sense of 
the nation has condemned lotteries, this free partici- 
pation in the one at Panama does not constitute a 
praiseworthy feature of the American occupation. 

Each Sunday afternoon or evening in some Canal 
Zone town the Commission band gives a concert. 
This pleasing organization has a director who is paid 
$2,000 a year and the members receive slightly more 
than $3 each for a concert. The band members are 
canal employees. 

The first census of the Canal Zone was taken in 
216 



CIVIL ADMINISTRATION 

1908, and a population of 50,003 was reported. In 
February, 191 2, another census was taken, and the 
population had increased to 62,810. However, there 
were 8,871 employees living in Panama and Colon, 
which brings the population to 71,682, not includ- 
ing the native populations of the cities of Panama and 
Colon. The white persons numbered 19,413; the col- 
ored, 31,525; yellow, 521; mixed, 10,323; miscella- 
neous, 1,028. Great Britain had 30,859 subjects; the 
United States, 11,850, and the remainder was dis- 
tributed among thirty-eight other nationalities. Of 
the American citizens, 9,770 were born in the United 
States, mainly from eight States, as follows: Penn- 
sylvania, 1,375; New York, 1,372; Ohio, 692; Illinois, 
453; Massachusetts, 386; iJndiana, 382; Kentucky, 
369; Virginia, 338. Gatun was the largest town, 
Empire second, Cristobal third, Gorgona fourth, Pa- 
raiso fifth. 

Dr. Belisario Porras, as President of the Republic 
of Panama, will play a decisive part in the next four 
years in guiding the relations of his country with the 
United States. 



217 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE SOCIETY OF THE CHAGRES 

•^/^ARAMBA/' exclaims the native Panaman, 
V^ as the torrential rains soak him through 
and through, and he wonders what reason Providence 
has in the prodigal tropical showers. He watches the 
river Chagres rise under the stimulation of the rainy 
season from a puny creek, fordable almost anywhere, 
to a stream as masterful almost as the Mississippi on 
a rampage. 

Balboa saw the same thing, and so did the pirate 
Morgan, and many Spanish seekers after El Dorado. 
It was not until the engineering mind began figuring 
on a canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans 
that the tremendous rainfall began to possess utility, 
and then the river Chagres assumed a significance, 
and the heavy precipitation a beneficence, which causes 
orators nowadays to see the hand of God in the form- 
ing of the natural conditions of the Isthmus. Thus 
does man change his conceptions of Deity to suit his 
needs ! 

In a lock-type canal, such as the Americans are 
completing, the river Chagres absolutely is indis- 
pensable. Without this river only a sea-level canal 
could have been built at Panama. For the engineers 
have harnessed this stream so as to form the great 
Gatun Lake, comprising all but fifteen miles of the 

218 



CHAGRES SOCIETY 

Panama Canal. The floods, which for centuries have 
emptied unrestrained into the Caribbean Sea, will lave 
the impregnable Gatun dam, or be spilled, at the 
pleasure of the Americans, through turbine engines 
to generate power, or flow at their will through the 
locks to lift or lower the commerce of the world across 
the Isthmus. 

It is not hyperbole, therefore, to say that the 
Chagres River is the greatest single factor in the suc- 
cess of the Panama Canal. The locks and the Culebra 
cut are no more than preparations for the utilization 
of the river. 

When the time came for selecting a name for a 
society which should embrace in its membership the 
canal workers who had been with the job at least 
six years, the object of which should be to keep alive 
the memories of those years in the future, it seemed 
peculiarly appropriate to name such an organization 
The Society of the Chagres. 

The idea of an organization of this kind first was 
exploited in December, 1909, when a " Panama Canal 
Service Medal Association " was organized, with 
membership limited to employees who had earned the 
Roosevelt Canal Medal, and having an insurance 
feature. This movement failed. In August, 191 1, 
William F. Shipley, of the Subsistence Department, 
initiated a new movement, which reached a head on 
October 7, 191 1, with the organization of the Society 
of the Chagres and the selection of Col. W. C. 
Gorgas as the first President. Tom M. Cooke, a canal 

219 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

veteran, and head of the division of posts, customs 
and revenues, is now President. 

The Society is thoroughly democratic in its mem- 
bership, any employee, of either sex, who is white 
and an American citizen, and who has worked for 
six years continuously on the canal, being eligible. 
An applicant must have earned the Roosevelt medal 
and two Commission service bars, and thereby hangs 
a tale. 

Col. Roosevelt, in a speech to the canal employees 
at Colon, on November i6, 1906, said: "I shall see 
if it is not possible to provide for some little memo- 
rial, some mark, some badge, which will always dis- 
tinguish the man who, for a certain space of time, 
has done his work well on the Isthmus, just as the 
button of the Grand Army distinguishes the man who 
did his work well in the Civil War.*' 

The idea here expressed did not reach fruition 
until October, 1908, when a ton of copper, bronze, 
and tin taken from old French locomotives and ex- 
cavators, was shipped to the Philadelphia Mint to 
be made into medals. Victor D. Brenner was the de- 
signer, the medal showing on one side a likeness of 
President Roosevelt, and on the reverse side a ship 
in the Culebra cut. They are about the size of a 
dollar. The first order was for 5,000 medals, and by 
January i, 191 1, 4,487 had been earned. By the time 
the canal is finished more than 6,000 will have been 
earned, every employee who has worked for two years 
on the canal being entitled to a medal. 

For each successive two years the employee works 
220 



CHAGRES SOCIETY 

he receives a bar, made from the same material and 
presented by the Commission. Thus, a Roosevelt 
medal and two bars mean an employee has worked 
for six years on the canal, and is eligible to member- 
ship in the Society of the Chagres. 

Col. George W. Goethals' eligibility dates from 
April I, 191 3, from which date he will have com- 
pleted the sixth year of his connection with the 
project. It undoubtedly is true that this medal, which 
intrinsically is of little value, has held many a man 
to two years in Panama from a sentimental desire to 
have something officially attesting his connection with 
the great task. 

There has been much more changing in the per- 
sonnel of the American force than the public knows, 
and to have been six years an employee means that 
one came when conditions literally were rotten and 
stuck it out until to-day, when they are nearly ideal. 
The Constitution provides for an annual meeting on 
the Isthmus until 191 5, and then in some American 
city, or the Canal Zone, as may be elected. On Janu- 
ary 12, 191 2, the first annual banquet was held at the 
Tivoli Hotel. 

The emblem of the Society is a circular button, nine 
sixteenths of an inch in diameter, showing on a black 
background, surrounded by a narrow gold border, six 
horizontal bars in gold. 

A determined effort was made to make Col. Roose- 
velt the only honorary member, but this has not been 
accomplished. It would be necessary to amend the 
Constitution, and as every member, in whatever part 

221 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

of the world, has a vote by letter, the two-thirds vote 
possibly never will be registered. 

The first Year Book of the Society was published 
in January, 191 2. It is a volume of 145 pages and 
contains brief biographies of the members, the Con- 
stitution, speeches by Presidents Roosevelt and Taft, 
in the Canal Zone, and by Chief Engineers Stevens 
and Goethals. The six-year men all worked under 
Mr. Stevens and loved him well. 

Forty States were represented in the membership 
of 304 in July, 1912. The following States were not 
represented: Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Nevada, 
New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming. 
As some of the members have not turned in informa- 
tion as to their native States, the exceptions noted 
may be represented in the Society. Members who 
are American citizens, but who were born abroad, 
represented the following countries : Canada, England, 
Germany, Russia, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Scotland, 
Sweden, and South Africa. 

Among the biographies the one of Alexander A. 
Lundisheff perhaps is the most picturesque. He was 
born in Russia, ran off to sea, joined a circus, be- 
came a sailor, crossed the Isthmus in 1888 as an 
American bluejacket, fought in Mexican revolutions, 
guarded convicts in Africa, enlisted in our Navy in 
the Spanish-American War, worked in the Alaska 
Coast Patrol, helped to fight the Panama revolution- 
ists in 1902 and had his life saved by a beautiful 
Panaman girl, whom he married, and when the Amer- 
icans came to Panama went to work under Col. Gor- 

222 



CHAGRES SOCIETY 

gas, in the sanitary department, where he has since 
remained. He had the unique record of working 
eight years for the Commission without being sick a 
day or losing a half hour from work, and had not 
taken a vacation in that period. Other members, 
women as well as men, have seen service in all parts 
of the world. 

President Taft, in a speech to the employees in 
November, 1910, said of the older rtkgT "As the 
great creation, which was so clear to the professional 
men who designed it, opens itself in concrete mold 
to the observation of the layman, the eagerness with 
which we all look forward to the completion of the 
work grows apace, and we envy the record of the 
men to whose skill and courage and energy, persist- 
ence and foresight, the canal will forever form an 
enduring monument ! " 

The time of the departure of the canal workers is 
near at hand. The old-timers feel that they have 
fought a good fight and that henceforth there is laid 
up for them the admiration which President Taft 
expressed. In a space of time now measured in 
months all will have left except those who remain 
with the permanent operating force. Already they 
are scattering to the four ends of the earth, whence 
they came. The Society of the Chagres will become 
one of the historic organizations of the United States, 
along with the Grand Army of the Republic, the 
United Confederate Veterans, the Spanish-American 
War Veterans, and the Sons and Daughters of the 
American Revolution. 

221 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

The Unca Society 

This organization includes in its membership only 
those employees who came to the Canal Zone in 1904 
and have been with the job ever since. At the annual 
banquet at the Tivoli in May, 191 2, the eighth anni- 
versary of American occupation, there were found to 
be only 63 such employees in the Canal Zone. 

I. O. P. K. 

Recreation ever has been the least satisfactorily 
solved problem at Panama. In 1904, 1905, and 1906 
the employees did not have the Y. M. C. A. club- 
houses which, after 1907, became the centers of social 
activities. State Clubs and various social organiza- 
tions were formed, but most of them passed out of 
existence, the University Club in Panama being a 
conspicuous exception. 

One night, a few of the boys, who congregated in 
the box cars connected with the wrecking train, au- 
thorized several of their number to arrest an employee 
suspected of having some cash on his person. He 
was brought to the cars and placed on trial, on 
trumped-up charges, before a Kangaroo Court. He 
was fined the amount of money found in his pockets 
and the sum was invested in refreshments at the 
nearest saloon and grocery. 

This proved to be so interesting that the events be- 
came weekly, no employee knowing when he might be 
arrested and fined to pay for the refreshments. Out 
of this incident grew the Independent Order of Pana- 

224 



CHAGRES SOCIETY 

manian Kangaroos, the only original lodge started 
successfully among the white canal employees. 

The first meeting was on October lo, 1906, and 
subsequently Kangaroo Courts were organized in 
Tabernilla, Gorgona, and other Canal Zone towns. 
A Supreme Court was organized, with a supreme jus- 
tice, two associate justices, prosecuting attorney, de- 
fendant attorney, chaplain, comptroller, clerk, and 
sheriff. The order was incorporated under the laws 
of the State of Tennessee, and the Constitution, 
adopted on March 18, 1908, forbids membership to 
liquor dealers, gamblers, or procurers, and requires 
American citizenship, white color, legal age, a belief 
in a Supreme Being, and an honorable means of sup- 
port in those accepted. The first Sunday in December 
is Memorial Day. Clinton O. Simmons was Chief 
Justice in 19 12. 

This order has done a great amount of charity 
work among members, or their families, and others 
who got in hard lines in the Canal Zone. It is sig- 
nificant of the character of the employees in the ster- 
ling ideals maintained. The membership is more than 
800. 



225 



CHAPTER XX 

THE TRADE OUTLOOK 

TIME and space, if they will not be annihilated, 
certainly will be tremendously lessened by the 
Panama Canal. 

On February ii, 191 2, a tug and three barges lay 
at the wharf in Cristobal, on the Atlantic side of the 
canal. They were needed at Balboa, on the Pacific 
side, only forty-seven miles across. There were two 
methods of getting the craft and barges to the desired 
point, one being to take them to pieces and transport 
them by the railroad and reerect them on the other 
side, and the other method being to send them around 
Cape Horn. 

They started on the journey of 10,500 miles on 
that date, and arrived safely at Balboa on June 16, 
191 2, consuming 126 days in the trip. If the canal 
had been finished, the distance of forty-seven miles 
could have been traversed in ten hours ! This is only 
one graphic illustration of the utility of the Panama 
Canal. 

San Francisco is now 14,000 miles from New York 
around Cape Horn. Through the Panama Canal it 
will be 8,000 miles nearer, or a little more than 5,000 
miles distant. From New York to Valparaiso, by the 
Straits of Magellan, the distance is about 9,000 miles. 
Via the canal it will be less than 5,000 miles. 

226 



THE TRADE OUTLOOK 

Our Atlantic coast will be brought 4,000 miles 
nearer to Australia than by the Suez Canal, through 
the Panama Canal route. New York will be 5,000 
miles nearer to New Zealand via Panama than around 
the Cape of Good Hope. The distance to the Philip- 
pines will not be materially reduced from Eastern 
Atlantic ports, but the Panama route will make Hong- 
kong, Yokohama, and San Francisco ports of call for 
our own and European vessels, which the Suez Canal 
does not readily permit. 

Equally great advantages in shortened trade routes 
will come to the Gulf and Pacific ports of the United 
States. San Francisco, Seattle, and Portland may 
place their products on our Atlantic coast, the West 
Indies, the east coast of South America, and in Eu- 
rope at correspondingly great savings in time and 
distance. 

For coal- or oil-burning ships this saving in time 
represents an impressive lowering in freight rates. 
Sailing vessels will not feel the fuel saving, but the 
difference in time effected by the Panama Canal doubt- 
less will serve to hold that slow-transit method much 
longer in use than it otherwise would be held for 
those commodities, like lumber, which do not require 
speedy delivery. 

Already the United States does a larger coastwise 
trade than any other nation in the world, and the 
canal will give this a spurt that cannot be measured 
accurately at present. Pacific coast wheat, wines, 
lumber, barley, hops, wool, dried fruits, and mining 
products may be laid down in Gulf and Atlantic ports 

22J 




228 



THE TRADE OUTLOOK 

through the canal much more cheaply than by the 
continental railroads. Atlantic and Gulf coast ma- 
chinery, manufactures, textiles, and finished products 
generally, likewise may be delivered to the Pacific 
ports at a lower cost. 

The great staple products of the South, cotton, to- 
bacco, lumber, iron, and coal, when destined for 
Asiatic ports, will have an immense advantage by the 
Panama route, and much of the ocean freight which 
has been shipped long distances to Eastern ports to 
ships will go through the Gulf ports. There neces- 
sarily will be a radical readjustment of our whole in- 
ternal freight movements, but the increase in volume 
still will leave the railroads their proportionate share. 

Geographically, the United States is magnificently 
situated, facing as it does the Atlantic and Pacific 
oceans and the Gulf of Mexico. The natural flow of 
commerce will be southward to the republics which so 
far have bought more in Europe than they have in 
America. The intensely self -centered industrial de- 
velopment which has characterized the United States 
to date seems to have reached a turning point, with 
the nation, after the first great attack at our own 
resources, ready to look around and participate more 
extensively in foreign commerce. It is true, of course, 
that our foreign commerce already is stupendous, but 
it will be immeasurably greater when our enterprise 
is directed as absorbingly toward that phase of indus- 
trialism as it has been toward internal development. 

The Panama Canal is bound to affect the politics 
of the United States, with especial regard to the tariff 

229 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

policy. So long as we were engrossed in our own 
provincial affairs, taking such foreign trade as vol- 
untarily came our way, the exclusiveness of the high 
protective tariff was beneficial. When we get out 
into the realm of international trade with our full 
capacity, it is inevitable that we must modify that 
policy as the particular demands of commerce may 
require. 

The United States has been too busy farming, 
mining, manufacturing, and exchanging these prod- 
ucts among its own people to care whether the national 
flag floated on few or many ships. It must be dif- 
ferent when international competition becomes so keen 
that a nation operating its own ships would have a 
substantial differential in freight rates over a nation 
that must depend upon foreign bottoms for its carry- 
ing business. 

England has had an absurdly disproportionate share 
of the world's shipping, due partly to our tariff policy, 
but more largely to the fact that its smaller internal 
resources made it necessary for its citizens to develop 
shipping as a main industry. Following the opening 
of the Panama Canal an increase in American registry 
will be noticeable. 

If we simply are anxious to see ships running about 
the oceans flying the American flag, Congress has 
acted effectively by throwing down the bars and allow- 
ing American capital not only to build its ships abroad, 
but to import ship-building materials duty free. It 
is obvious, however, that such a method of building 
up our merchant marine will enrich European ship- 

230 



THE TRADE OUTLOOK 

yards rather than our own, because Congress has set 
its seal of approval upon the practice of buying abroad 
if it can be done more cheaply than in the United 
States. Coastwise ships still must be built in America. 

Congress will be called upon to provide some way 
for handling the passenger traffic that would prefer 
to go to the San Francisco Exposition through the 
canal from Atlantic and Gulf ports. This will be 
coastwise trade, and there are no American ships ade- 
quate for the probable traffic. Unless Congress grants 
a special dispensation allowing the foreign lines to 
handle this traffic during the Exposition, it is likely 
that they would have to relay the Atlantic traffic to 
Bermuda Islands and the Gulf traffic to Cuba, and so 
make it, by reembarkation, travel from a foreign port 
to San Francisco. 

There has been speculation as to whether the canal 
would pay. Congress has authorized a maximum 
freight rate of $1.25 a ton and a rate of $1.50 for 
each passenger that passes through the canal. The 
President has the power, through proclamation, to 
reduce these rates to any point that will still supply 
sufficient revenues to pay operating and maintenance 
expenses. The Suez Canal pays for itself every four 
years, but it cost less than a third as much as the 
Panama Canal, which also will require 2,500 em- 
ployees as a permanent operating force. 

Operating and maintenance expenses for the canal 
in Panama will be, annually, about $4,000,000. In- 
terest on the investment, part at 2 per cent and part 
at 3 per cent, will be around $10,000,000 a year. 

231 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

Thus the canal must bring in approximately $14,- 
000,000 a year to be self-sustaining. Traffic experts 
estimate that the possible tonnage by 1914 will be 
10,000,000 tons. At the $1.25 rate, the income, there- 
fore, would be $12,500,000, or $2,500,000 less than 
operating cost, but this loss would be reduced by the 
tolls from passengers. It is possible that the canal 
may not pay right at the start, but ultimately there is 
no doubt that it will. 

Suez may be expected to fight for its business by 
reduced rates. This will not be so formidable as our 
own short-sighted management. Congress, by ex- 
empting American coastwise ships from tolls, delib- 
erately affronted England, the largest prospective 
patron of the canal, because the greatest maritime 
nation. And England, it should be remembered, con- 
trols Suez. Misguided patriotism alone dictated the 
exemption of our coastwise ships. They already have 
a natural monopoly of coastwise trade. If the nation 
desires to give a special industry a gratuity, it should 
be done without antagonizing the best customer we 
are likely to have at Panama — England. The Ameri- 
can people show an inconsistency in sanctioning this 
treaty violation, inasmuch as the whole cry for the 
last ten years has been against special interests and 
private monopolies fostered by the government. To 
deliberately subsidize the shipping business, as much 
a private industry as Standard Oil, not only violates 
the spirit of the times but inevitably will result in a 
great economic loss at Panama, if the present method 
is continued. 

232 



THE TRADE OUTLOOK 

One advantage Panama will have over Suez will 
be in the coaling rates. We can sell coal at Panama 
for $5 a ton, or a trifle less, whereas $6 a ton is the 
prevailing rate at Suez. This saving will go far 
toward paying for the passage of a ship through the 
canal. For instance, a ship leaving New York, or 
Liverpool, would take on only enough coal to run to 
Panama, where a fresh supply could be obtained, and 
thus room that otherwise would be filled with coal 
for the whole journey may be used for additional 
freight. The same saving to ships will be experienced 
in securing all kinds of supplies from the government 
at Panama, while dry docks and other facilities will 
be available. 

Col. Goethals has displayed a high order of busi- 
ness acumen in guiding the government into this pol- 
icy. The advantage to the United States lies in the 
fact that other nations will not have to establish coal- 
ing stations and repairing facilities on the pretense of 
caring for their merchant marine, and so lead into a 
possible infringement of the Monroe doctrine. An 
incidental benefit of the policy, though decidedly one 
worth while, lies in the fact that our coal mines will 
find a great market at Panama through the practice 
of selling to ships. The government will not have 
private competition, because private capital could not 
operate on the margin of profit that will satisfy the 
government. 

The rapid development of South America is the 
surest promise of a commerce that will make the canal 
economically profitable. The business that originates 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

there and our own expanding foreign trade will be 
great feeders of the canal, not considering Europe, 
Asia, Africa, and Australasia. 

As the United States becomes more thickly popu- 
lated the overflow will go largely to the South. With 
the practical proof afforded at Panama that health 
can be maintained in a tropical climate, Americans 
more and more will swarm to South and Central 
America. Hundreds of canal employees have gone 
into business in the tropical countries rather than re- 
turn to the harsher climate and sterner industrial 
competition of the United States. South America, 
however, is not the place for the man with small cap- 
ital such as the United States has been. The cultiva- 
tion of the staple products, such as bananas, coconuts, 
coffee, cocoa, sugar, rubber trees, etc., is precarious 
on a small scale because great monopolies dominate 
these industries and crush individual enterprise. Syn- 
dicate operations on a large scale are the only suc- 
cessful means of business promotion, though here and 
there the prospector strikes a good thing. For men 
of ability who are willing to work as employees there 
are many good openings in Latin America. 

The Americans have a great deal to learn from the 
older nations of Europe in order to make the most 
of their natural advantage in South American mar- 
kets. Our merchandise is more attractive to the Latin 
American because usually it is smarter in design and 
appearance, though frequently inferior in quality, and 
simply because the United States dazzles the Southern 
imagination. The Germans and the English are past 

234 



THE TRADE OUTLOOK 

masters in getting foreign business. They send out 
salesmen who speak the native languages, and when 
they make shipments it is in a manner most con- 
venient to the peculiar conditions of the particular 
country. 

Your American manufacturer or exporter gets the 
biggest box he can find and puts as much into it as 
it will hold. Frequently the big box is broken when 
it is unloaded at the South American port, occasion- 
ing trouble to the consignee. Often the shipment is 
consigned to some interior point to which a mule 
pack train is the only means of transportation. This 
occasions more trouble and expense to the purchaser. 
The Germans do things differently. They pack their 
merchandise in small packages and in durable boxes, 
knowing that it may have to be handled over moun- 
tain passes by hand or muleback. They have a regard 
to the high temperature and the character of the mer- 
chandise so that it may not spoil. But these are not 
insuperable faults upon the part of the Americans, 
and already they are being eliminated intelligently 
after bitter experience. In nearly all our Eastern or 
seaport cities every exporting office has a Spanish- 
speaking attache to conduct correspondence in the lan- 
guage of its Southern customers. 

Among the agencies at work to bring Americans 
to a realization of the opportunities that lie in plenti- 
ful profusion in South and Central America none is 
more ably and successfully managed than the Bureau 
of American Republics, in Washington, with John 
Barrett as Director-General. The most striking fea- 

235 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

ture of Mr. Barrett's work is the statesmanlike plane 
on which he seeks to interest Americans in the twenty 
republics to the South. Get business is his motto, but 
get it by straightforward, respectful, and enduring 
methods. The constant aim of the Bureau is to abol- 
ish the foolish opinions Americans have entertained 
about the business, social, and political capacities of 
Latin Americans. They are not the comic-opera revo- 
lutionist type at which we laugh on Broadway, They 
are cultured people who expect to be approached as 
gentlemen, and the periodic fighting that attends a 
change in administration in some Central American 
countries does not gainsay that fact. 

Mr. Barrett edits a monthly Bulletin which already 
is in the most wide-awake American exporting offices, 
and should be in the hands of every business head 
who directly or indirectly touches South American 
commerce. Printed as it is in English and Spanish, 
it is serving to remove many prejudices by making 
closer acquaintances. An impartial monthly review 
of all subjects of real interest, industrial, political, 
and general, enables its readers to keep in touch au- 
thoritatively with Latin America. In view of the 
forebodings some of the Southern republics have had 
at the possible territorial expansion of the United 
States at their expense, this Bureau under Mr. Barrett 
is doing an inestimably valuable service to American 
business interests by its sympathetic and tactful policy. 

The dynamic expansion of American industrial life 
is the one overshadowing fact in the Western Hemi- 
sphere, as indeed it is in the whole world. It is a 

236 



THE TRADE OUTLOOK 

new kind of conquest, not preceded by the sword, and 
if we maintain our moral poise will not be followed 
by any other than happy results to the conquered. 
English is destined to be the sole language of the 
Western world. American merchandise will form 
the bulk of its commerce. American citizens will be 
found in every out-of-the-way corner of the two con- 
tinents, carrying with them, even if in diminished 
luster, the ideals and abilities which have made the 
nation eclipse all records thus early in its youth. The 
Panama Canal marks our passage from unfledged 
provincialism to the full stature of national manhood 
among the industrial activities of the nations of the 
world. 



237 



CHAPTER XXI 

SETTLING OUR ACCOUNT WITH COLOMBIA 

THE American people, like the Israelites of old, 
are a peculiar people, chosen of God to fulfill 
a high destiny among the nations of the world. 

Whether it was a good thing for Puritanism to be 
set down in the lap of material luxury on the North 
American continent is not yet disclosed, although we 
have abundant evidence of the struggle, already 
sharply drawn, between the spiritual and materialistic 
forces in the national character. 

The Civil War was an even mightier conflict, be- 
tween the Puritan and Cavalier, than Marston Moor 
and Naseby. In it the Puritan triumphed even more 
gloriously. In it the Puritan was clinching the prin- 
ciples of the great English struggle. He was stamp- 
ing out the embers of the unspiritual forces in Anglo- 
Saxon character. 

Our unparalleled material prosperity is at work to 
revive the spirit of the Cavalier and to dull the keen 
edge of Puritanism. Righteousness never has flour- 
ished under great material prosperity. The cocksure 
feeling, that comes from the possession of much 
worldly goods, is beginning to appear in the external 
and internal actions of the American nation. The 
letter of " In God We Trust " remains unimpaired 
on our currency, but its Puritanic spirit has weakened 

238 



OUR ACCOUNT WITH COLOMBIA 

perceptibly. We are depending on a big navy to see 
us through. 

Probably no war ever was fought with more dis- 
interested motives than the Spanish-American War. 
The Americans seemed to relish the opportunity to 
lay aside the rich pursuits of commercialism for a 
while to exercise the old spiritual forces of the Puri- 
tan. The dash and vitality of that outburst caused 
Europe to think deeply. 

But the Spanish-American War had one result that 
shows the American people are measurably less deter- 
mined in their spiritual conceptions than the genera- 
tion of '65. We kept the Philippines, much as the 
warriors of Israel kept the plunder of the Philistines 
when they had been commanded sternly not to make 
their cause one of material aggrandizement. 

Our treatment of the Filipinos has been as unparal- 
leled in its humanitarianism as our conduct in the war 
that gave them to us. But that is our way of assuag- 
ing our conscience for holding them, a sugar-coating 
process to make the act pass muster. Down in our 
national heart we know we are holding the Philip- 
pines for what they ultimately will mean to us mate- 
rially, not what we can do for them spiritually. If 
the ten million Filipinos were in the Southern States, 
where we could see them and feel the pulsation of 
democratic forces, and not seven thousand miles away, 
we would fight another Civil War over them, just as 
we did over the Negro. 

All of this by way of introduction to the act that 
gave us the Canal Zone. We have the admission of 

239 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

the President himself that he abandoned the regular 
diplomatic methods of securing the territory needed 
for building a canal in favor of the primitive method 
of taking it by force. This leads straight to the ad- 
mission that v^e set up the Republic of Panama merely 
to make an otherwise bald steal appear to bear some 
evidence of justification. It has been shown in a 
previous chapter that the revolution that gave the 
Republic its independence was made a success by the 
United States. 

So far, the national conscience has not stirred itself 
greatly over this act. At least it has not stirred itself 
decisively, and that is another proof that the Puritan 
spirit is taking itself much less seriously than it did 
so short a time ago as 1898. One reason has been 
that the American people only recently have begun to 
get the true understanding of what did happen at 
Panama. President Roosevelt exerted the full capaci- 
ties of his versatile mind to cloud the situation, so 
that the moral sense of the people would not be 
aroused, until it would be too late to undo his act. 

He pretended that the treatment Panama had re- 
ceived, as a kind of stepchild of Colombia, warranted 
the same kind of action we took to free Cuba. His 
Secretary of State advanced the strained construction 
of our solemn treaty with Colombia that we were 
under obligation to maintain the neutrality of the 
Panama Railroad, and so prevent the soldiers of Co- 
lombia from striking down the revolution. The 
President further recognized the independence of the 
Republic, and insisted that it was an act as disinter- 

240 



OUR ACCOUNT WITH COLOMBIA 

ested, for instance, as our recognition of the new 
Republic of China. In truth, they bear no similarity 
of feature. 

'In China the masses of the people were trying to 
demonstrate an advance in their understanding of 
government to the point where authority would be 
recognized as inherent in them, and not an external 
imposition by an alien line of Emperors. In Panama 
the masses of the people not only did not know about 
the revolution until it had passed, but no more than 
an ordinary mob, such as may be aroused on an hour's 
notice in any city, participated in it. 

It was not necessary that the people of Panama 
should know about it. The United States had agreed 
to stand between the clique of Panaman financiers 
and any offensive act Colombia might undertake. 
Undoubtedly there had been popular uprisings against 
Colombia in Panama, but the revolution of November 
3, 1903, was not one of them. This revolution had 
three sources of inspiration — The French Canal Com- 
pany, the capitalist Junta in Panama, and Theodore 
Roosevelt's desire to get a canal started before his 
inherited administration should end. 

In this review of the canal President Roosevelt's 
action in taking Panama has been approved. It is 
approved as an international act of eminent domain. 
Where criticism is directed is at our refusal to pay 
for what we took. The $10,000,000 we paid Panama 
was a moral quibble, as may be illustrated. 

Any American railroad, or any municipality, county 
or State, may exercise the right of eminent domain 

241 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

to secure property in its right of way, or necessary to 
their well being. But property so taken must be paid 
for at a fair valuation to the rightful owner. 

The rightful owner of the territory we desired for 
a canal was Colombia. When we took that territory 
we took it from Colombia. The way we took it was 
to participate in a bogus revolution, engineered by a 
Junta of wealthy Panaman business and professional 
men. It turned out that the part they played in mak- 
ing the revolution a success was farcical, while the 
part the United States Marines played was vital. 

The Marines at first had orders not to allow either 
Colombian or revolutionary troops to use the railroad. 
When this order was issued the revolution had not 
started. Besides, there were no revolutionists after 
it did start on the Atlantic side to use the railroad, 
except a handful of the hirelings of the Junta. The 
second order the Marines received was that Colombia 
would not be allowed to settle the revolution by force. 

In two days the United States recognized the inde- 
pendence of a republic thus created. Twelve days 
later it had signed a treaty with this republic guaran- 
teeing that Colombia would not be allowed to recover 
possession. The treaty recited that the United States 
was to be ceded a Canal Zone in consideration of this 
guarantee. 

There we have the facts in the " taking " of Pan- 
ama. What we did was to help the Panama capitalist 
Junta to steal the Isthmus from Colombia, then, in 
the division of spoils, we obtained a Canal Zone. The 
$10,000,000 to the new republic was part of the ad- 

242 



OUR ACCOUNT WITH COLOMBIA 

ministration's efforts to create an appearance of regu- 
larity in the proceedings. It was meant to ease the 
national conscience — not the administration's con- 
science. 

Anyone who will spend a month in Panama will 
discover that the republic would not stand from supper 
until breakfast if it were not for the supporting arm 
of the United States. It has become rather a burden- 
some task, too, as our interference three times with 
Marines to keep the government from toppling over 
proves. This is not because the Panamans are infe- 
rior to any other Central American peoples. It is 
because there is not sufficient inherent vitality in so 
tiny a republic to hold it up alone. 

If any American railroad should desire property 
for a right of way and, instead of condemning it by 
due process of law, should connive with a neighbor 
to falsely claim possession of the property and then 
buy the property from the illegal owner, the action 
not only would not stand in law but it would outrage 
public opinion. That precisely is the course we fol- 
lowed at Panama. President Roosevelt did not dare 
to take the property outright from Colombia, the 
compensation to be fixed by due process afterward, 
but connived with a revolutionary Junta, through his 
Secretary of State, to have the property claimed by 
a Republic to be set up specifically for that purpose, 
which Republic would sell the property to the United 
States. 

The whole thing was done with the Rooseveltian 
dash that won frequently by sheer momentum. Eight 

243 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

years later, believing it to be a closed incident, Presi- 
dent Roosevelt confesses : " I took Panama and left 
Congress to debate the matter afterwards." There is 
a deal of contempt for the acumen of Congress in 
that remark, and looking back at the way Congress 
swallowed the incident, it is merited contempt. 

It is a closed incident so far as the territory com- 
prised in the Canal Zone is concerned. The issue 
to-day only is this : Have the American people enough 
of the old Puritanic righteousness left to insure that 
if a clear case of national wrongdoing is proved they 
will make reparation? 

Colombia cannot compel reparation, nor can Eu- 
rope. When we consider Germany and France quar- 
reling over the spoils of Morocco, Italy taking Tripoli, 
England and Russia partitioning Persia, and Japan 
annexing Korea, what is left of The Hague to sit in 
judgment upon the action of the United States in 
Panama ? 

Absolutely nothing will compel the United States to 
do justice — except the still, small voice of national 
conscience. The action of the Minister from Colom- 
bia in declining an invitation to Secretary Knox to 
visit Colombia, in the spring of 1912, is the limit of 
Colombia's ability to protest. 

But it ought to be set down as a maxim of canal 
management, if not of national policy, that no neigh- 
bor of the canal should be allowed to remain on bad 
terms with the Americans. It is not good that a 
nation so near as Colombia should be in a hostile 
frame of mind toward the United States. This is 

^44 



OUR ACCOUNT WITH COLOMBIA 

true, not so much for what a sense of injustice rank- 
ling in the minds of her citizens might precipitate, 
but because, if anything happened to the canal, Co- 
lombia, in the event blame was not promptly fixed, 
inevitably would have to bear the burden of our 
suspicion. 

There is still doubt as to whether Spain set off the 
mine that wrecked the Maine, but that did not keep 
Spain from taking the consequences. So with the 
canal. If it should be disabled without a clear cause 
or responsibility, the jingoes in the United States 
would point to Colombia as one with a grudge. Thus, 
the bad feeling engendered in the taking of Panama 
might precipitate the mighty United States, in a fit of 
national passion, upon an innocent nation, more sinned 
against than sinning. 

But, ultimately, the question of reparation must 
rest squarely upon a moral issue. It is not so much 
the rights of Colombia that should impel us to an act 
of reparation as a desire to live up to our own best 
instincts. The American ideal is something far dif- 
ferent from law-compelled righteousness; it rises to 
the grandeur of righteousness for the sake of right- 
eousness. Colombia suffered materially by our act, 
but we have suffered morally, and an enlightened 
judgment would be that we suffer the most. 

Is it compatible with the dignity of a great nation 
like the United States to reverse its position by mak- 
ing reparation? This question more properly should 
read, Is it compatible with the pride of a great nation 
like the United States to make reparation? The an- 

245 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

swer is : The United States has no dignity to uphold. 
It may restore its dignity and sense of righteousness 
only by reversing its wilful and headstrong action. 
We merely play the ostrich in sticking our national 
head into the sand of the Panama revolution and 
fancy our action is hid. 

There are three courses open to the United States. 
The first is to consider the acquisition of the Canal 
Zone a closed incident and decline discussion or repa- 
ration. The second is to pay Colombia a cash indem- 
nity for the loss of her richest province. The third ^ 
is to make reparation by restoration. 

Manifestly, the first course involves national dis- 
honor. This is true even if it has become an inter- 
national fad for strong nations to pillage the weak 
ones. The second course would involve the arbitra- 
tion of Colombia's claim and a payment by the United 
States in some form for the adjudicated damage. 
Naturally, in such an event, the excuse for the con- 
tinued existence of the Republic of Panama would 
vanish, unless after paying for the whole territory we 
should make the Republic's title clear by gift. 

The third course involves the restoration to Co- 
lombia of the territory comprised in the Republic 
of Panama, except the Canal Zone. It also would 
involve some cash indemnity equal to the loss of 
revenues during the nine years of separation, minus 
the improvements made by the United States. Article - 
XXIV of our treaty with the Republic of Panama 
seems to have contemplated some such contingency as 

246 



OUR ACCOUNT WITH COLOMBIA 

this, as we note the fine hand of Secretary Hay in 
the following: 

"llf the Republic of Panama shall here- 
after enter as a constituent into any Govern- 
ment, or into any union or Confederation of 
States, so as to merge her sovereignty or 
independence in such government, union or 
confederation, the rights of the United 
States under this convention shall not be in 
any respect lessened or impaired." 

In other words, if we should restore Panama to 
Colombia, less the Canal Zone, which ostensibly was 
all we wanted, the point to be arbitrated would be 
the value of the Canal Zone. It would be necessary, 
of course, as the foregoing article provides, that all 
our privileges under the present treaty with Panama 
should be binding if the province returned to the 
sovereignty of Colombia. Those privileges include the 
vital right to use any rivers or lands in the Republic 
that may be necessary to the construction, maintenance, 
operation, or defense of the canal. 

Colombia would regain control of a province vastly 
improved since the separation. The cities of Panama 
and Colon have been made into modern cities by the 
Americans. Of the $10,000,000 we paid to Panama, 
about $6,000,000 remains unexpended and invested in 
New York real estate. This would revert to Colom- 
bia, as well as the improvements made with the por- 
tion expended. Whatever loss in revenues during the 

247 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

separation that Colombia might claim would not be 
a material consideration to the United States. 

Undoubtedly under such an arrangement provision 
would have to be made whereby the old order of 
things that existed prior to the revolution should not 
recur. The United States could not tolerate a turbu- 
lent situation on the banks of the canal. It still would 
have to retain the plenary powers in respect of sani- 
tation and order that exist under the present treaty. 
This doubtless would be the hitch that would come in 
attempting such a solution. 

The people of Panama, remembering the old days, 
and keen in the enjoyment of conditions as created 
and maintained by the United States, probably would 
object to any solution that gave Colombia renewed 
sovereignty. It would be far less of an exercise of 
arbitrary power to overrule this objection than it was 
to set the republic up in 1903. In whatever solution 
that may be selected some authoritative actions will 
be necessary. 

Those Americans who balk at the prospect of a 
large money indemnity to Colombia, for taking Pan- 
ama, should ask themselves whether any mere love of 
lucre should stand between us and a clean conscience. 
The situation in which we are involved may cost 
dearly to straighten out, but that is the inevitable 
price, in the individual or national life, of walking 
in the paths of unrighteousness. The Colombian 
claim is a call to arms between the forces of good and 
evil in the American national character. Do we stand 
at Armageddon, and do we battle for the Lord? 

248 



CHAPTER XXII 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

IT is to be doubted if so lion-hearted a policy ever 
was announced by so weak a people as the prin- 
ciple that is involved in the Monroe doctrine, promul- 
gated in 1823. That it should have stood all the years 
prior to our attainment of the physical strength to 
make it good, is proof that its real vitality lies in the 
truth that it expresses rather than in the battleships 
we can summon to intimidate its acceptation. 

To-day, more than ever, the American people need 
to study the spirit that prompted that declaration. 
The United States in recent years has been perilously 
near to just the violation of it that we prohibited to 
Europe. It is certain that if we ourselves ever step 
over its spirit we will need all the steel and powder 
this resourceful nation can command to hold Europe 
and Asia back; whereas, if we continue to interpret 
it aright, the land-hungry nations may look covetously 
upon the Western Hemisphere, but that same vital 
quality that restrained them in the days of our weak- 
ness will hold them back now. 

The Monroe doctrine asserted that the principle of 
democracy, which had sought a haven in this Hemi- 
sphere, must not be pursued and persecuted by the 
institution of monarchy. The phraseology declared 
that the Americas must not henceforth be considered 

249 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

a place for European colonization, but the spirit of 
the policy rneant that two such irreconcilable systems 
of government as monarchy and democracy could 
not live side by side in the same hemisphere, and 
that the safety of democracy required the exclusion 
of monarchy. 

In these latter days there has sprung up a tendency, 
not strongly developed as yet, to interpret that doc- 
trine to mean that, while Europe and Asia must keep 
out, the United States is destined to dominate the 
whole situation. That instead of America for Amer- 
icans, it means the Western Hemisphere for the 
United States. 

It is certain that the nations of the Gulf of Mexico 
and the Caribbean Sea discern such a tendency in the 
actions of the United States. The United States 
looms up to them with a strength far more formidable 
than we are conscious of, and they fear the day when 
we grow conscious of that strength with a waning 
sense of Puritan justice. 

The Spanish-American War was a revelation to 
them as it was to us. Far-sighted Latin Americans 
could read in that altruistic interference in their 
affairs the forerunner of interferences which might 
not be so altruistic. So far it substantially is true 
that we have not interfered anywhere in Central or 
South America that it was not to the benefit of the 
nation involved. 

When the United States executed the coup that rid 
Venezuela of Castro it did a service of inestimable 
value to that nation. When it rid Nicaragua of 

250 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

Zelaya it did a similar service. In aiding Santo Do- 
mingo to straighten out its finances, in setting civil 
government upon its feet in Cuba, and in other in- 
stances of interference not so important, the Ameri- 
cans have played the role of disinterested friendship. 

On the other hand, the manner in v^hich we ac- 
quired the Canal Zone suddenly showed Latin America 
that, though Uncle Sam might bear the visage of a 
rector, he could just as readily play the role of a 
strong-arm man not overly scrupulous when he is 
selfishly impelled. 

In the early days of our own republic political con- 
troversy revolved around the relation to England, 
with one faction being intensely provincial, and gen- 
erally successful, and the other faction rather inclined 
to take the European view of our affairs. The situa- 
tion in the republics that fringe the Gulf and Carib- 
bean Sea to-day is identical, only the factions revolve 
around the issue of American interference. 

Our smaller Southern neighbors have grown to look 
upon American interference as inevitable, with the 
faction that can enlist our sympathy pretty well as- 
sured of success. Hence the revolutionary factions 
struggle for the strategic position involved in the 
approval of our State Department. Sooner or later 
such approval means United States Marines to help 
the favored side. 

This strikingly was illustrated in the June and July 
Presidential elections in the Republic of Panama in 
1 9 12. Dr. Belisario Porras, the popular candidate, 
openly solicited American military intervention, and 

251 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

it was forthcoming. In Nicaragua, in August of 191 2, 
Marines were landed ostensibly to protect American 
interests, but one faction had allied itself with those 
interests, so that our interference was in reality to 
aid that faction of revolutionists. 

These incidents are not cited as instances of unwar- 
ranted interpretation of the Monroe doctrine. Each 
was justified by the facts of the individual case. The 
point in mind is that we are embarked upon a role, 
as umpire in Central and South American affairs, that 
will require the utmost keenness of Puritanic justice 
to prevent a change from a policy of altruism to one 
of open selfishness. 

When President Roosevelt announced that if we 
ever went into Cuba again it would be to stay, he 
made just such a change imminent. There never was 
a declaration of policy that more widely missed the 
true spirit of the Monroe doctrine. It would start 
the United States upon a course that, in twenty-five 
years, would reduce every Gulf and Caribbean repub- 
lic to the position of a satrapy of the United States, 
with United States soldiers, as in the Philippines, 
exercising the final powers of the legislative, execu- 
tive, and judicial functions. 

The lesson President Roosevelt had in mind was that 
the United States could not be continually troubling 
itself to maintain order among any people that were 
not capable of self-government. But, with the mem- 
ory of other great nations, which undertook to manage 
the affairs of widely distributed peoples by the power 
of military might, not to mention the fundamental 

252 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

tenets of our governmental faith on such an imperial 
policy, it will be wise for the Americans to be cautious 
in endorsing the Cuban declaration. 

Our Civil War ought to have taught us that the 
American people cannot live in the face of a flagrant 
lie to our institutions. Slavery was such a lie, and it 
was stamped out. The military control we exercise 
over the Philippines is another such lie, but so far 
away and vague that the Puritan conscience does not 
grasp its significance. The moment we begin the 
forcible military occupation of Cuba, Mexico, or other 
American republics, we will be adding other lies to 
the foundation of our republic, namely, " that all men 
are free and equal and have certain inalienable rights." 

The right of Cuba to manage its own affairs, how- 
ever wretchedly, is an inalienable right. Our inter- 
ference is never justified except to enable the Cubans 
to continue that right. Where we interfere to per- 
manently remove that right, such as would occur in 
annexation or habitual military supervision, we pass 
the lie direct upon our own profession of principles. 

God made the Americans a superior people to ful- 
fill a high destiny, but he never made them so superior 
that they can trample all rights of weaker nations in 
the dust from a supercilious idea that we can manage 
their affairs better than they. 

When President Roosevelt asks, Shall we forgive 
Cuba unto three times for its shortcomings? the an- 
swer of the American people must be. Yea, until 
seventy- times seven. But this does not mean that the 
United States must continue to bear the expense of 

253 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

such efforts to prevent a collapse in Southern govern- 
ments. Our interference primarily is to obviate the 
necessity of European interference, and if we act as 
police of the Western Hemisphere there should be a 
compensation, at least, equal to our outlay in such 
efforts. 

Whenever v^e go into Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama, 
or any other republic, to protect American and Euro- 
pean interests, the cost of the expedition should be 
assessed against the country which necessitated the 
expedition. Then we should retire and allow them 
to try again at the task of self-government. And we 
should stay off from annexation, or permanent mili- 
tary occupation, as we would from taking a tarantula 
into our national breast. 

There is no truth quite so important for the Ameri- 
can people to burn into their consciousness, as with 
a hot iron, to guide their foreign policy as this: 
The Lord we serve is no less the God of the Mon- 
golian, the Ethiopian, or the Latin American than he 
is of the Caucasian and the American. Let us beware 
what we do against these other peoples in His name. 

The wise decision of President Taft to stay out, 
both of Cuba and Mexico, during recent troubles, was 
in accordance with the best spirit of the Monroe doc- 
trine. It allows these nations latitude to work out 
their own destinies, certainly the very least that they 
could ask. Meanwhile they are responsible for every 
dollar's damage they do to our own or foreign prop- 
erty, and any attempt to make them pay such damage 
would be founded in right. Forcible interference, 

254 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

however, automatically cancels a claim for damages, 
except such as may be won by the sword. And that 
would mean that our young manhood henceforth 
would have to be enlisted to sacrifice their lives in 
maintaining a suzerainty radically antagonistic to true 
Americanism. 

Aside from the turbulent characteristic of the Latin 
American temperament, the most prolific cause of 
American interference in Central and South American 
affairs is the American capitalist. This especially is 
true in Cuba and Mexico, and in the republics south 
of Mexico to Panama. 

Your American capitalist in these countries smiles 
indulgently when you talk about the departure of the 
United States from its principles in establishing sov- 
ereignty over the smaller republics. To him there is 
absolutely nothing on the horizon but the dollar he 
has invested, and his government does not exist ex- 
cept to guard that dollar. But he goes much further 
than that. He believes his dollar will have added 
value if the United States were sovereign instead of 
the particular native government under which he 
operates. 

The sugar-plantation owners in Cuba are more re- 
sponsible for the unsettled conditions in that island 
than the Cubans themselves. And they almost in- 
variably are Americans. They believe that the free 
trade that would follow American occupation would 
benefit them as well as other phases of American 
governmental methods. Hence they finance revolu- 

255 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

tions and assiduously work to create public opinion 
favorable to American sovereignty. 

Native political factions, in their extremity, make 
alliances with the American interests of one kind or 
another, and so complicate the situation that it appears 
to be the usual case of a revolution. But the Ameri- 
can dollar, even if not the primary cause, always is 
a potent secondary cause, and for that reason the 
United States should look a long time before it leaps 
at annexation or military suzerainty. 

So far as the Latin republics are concerned, what 
difference would it make to them whether a European, 
or the American power, dispossesses them of self- 
government? If the Monroe doctrine does not stand 
as a bulwark against American domination, as well as 
against European domination, what boots it to them? 
Would American domination be wiser or less distaste- 
ful to a proud people than European domination ? To 
what effect was all the revolting from Spain in the 
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries if it is to be suc- 
ceeded in the twentieth century by American sover- 
eignty? And would not the American sword in Cuba 
be just as relentless in its autocratic sway as the 
Spanish sword? 

We cannot afford to embark on a policy of pater- 
nalism in Latin America because of the damage it 
would do to us through underliving our basic ideals. 
This generation of Americans has before it the neces- 
sity of demonstrating that self-government is possible 
among our neighbors to the South. If we do not 
prove this truth, we may build a material civilization 

256 



THE MONROE DOCTRINE 

as high as the combined achievements of Egypt, 
Babylon, Greece, and Rome, and still the eternal query 
will arise. What shall it profit a nation if it gain the 
whole world and lose its own soul ? 

The Magdalena Bay incident is typical of the opera- 
tions of capital in Latin America. Instead of j ingoing 
about Japan over this Bay, why not find out what 
syndicate of capitalists is trying to force the United 
States to buy it, by spreading all kinds of rumors 
against a friendly power? There is no nation direct- 
ing its foreign policy so wisely to-day as Japan, and 
it would as soon think of securing a naval base in the 
Americas as it would of attempting to annex China. 

The Senate issued a warning to the world, reaffirm- 
ing the Monroe doctrine as regards the securing of 
naval stations in the Western Hemisphere. Europe 
will respect the Monroe doctrine as long as the United 
States does. It will respect it as long as the United 
States maintains it as a disinterested, unselfish pro- 
nunciamento. But the moment we begin gobbling up 
these weak republics, that moment will Europe pounce 
down upon Central and South America. And then 
we will need the biggest navy our forests and mines 
can supply to maintain the Monroe doctrine. 

There is more than one South American republic 
where Germany is regarded in a more friendly light 
than the United States. Germany has aided Brazil 
and Argentine to discipline their armies along modern 
lines, and these republics do not have to grovel at 
Uncle Sam's feet. Argentine is completing one of the 
largest battleships in the world. The European policy 

257 



THE AMERICANS IN PANAMA 

will be to encourage these Latin republics on the as- 
sumption that some day they may combine to humble 
the United States. Napoleon sold the United States 
the Louisiana purchase and remarked that he thereby 
sold a territory that would one day humble England. 

The most salutary thing that could happen in the 
American foreign policy would be the apprehension 
and execution of any American capitalists who inspire 
revolutions in Latin America, rather than the hound- 
ing of these republics, more sinned against than sin- 
ning. From now on it is going to be a titanic struggle 
with the American people to prevent the ascendency 
of the dollar over principle in the interpretation of the 
Monroe doctrine. There is not the slightest doubt 
about our getting all that rightfully belongs to us. 
Can we restrain ourselves from taking more than our 
just desserts? 

The Panama Canal makes us rub elbows with Latin 
America as never before. Secretary Knox, in his 
191 2 junket to Central America, assured the Latin 
republics that the United States does not crave one 
foot of their territory. Such a declaration will serve 
to keep the Monroe doctrine inviolate better than the 
largest caliber rifles, because it notified the world that 
we will not ourselves do what they have been for- 
bidden to do. There is no nation in the world that 
will dare fight the United States when the right is on- 
our side. We can keep it there only by loving our 
South American neighbors as we love ourselves. 



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